


God Save the Queen

by couqhdrop



Category: The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996), The Hunchback of Notre Dame - Menken/Schwartz/Parnell
Genre: Alternate Universe - Royalty, F/M, Family Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Nightmares, Rags to Riches, Self-Hatred
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-28
Updated: 2021-03-11
Packaged: 2021-03-14 01:13:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 21
Words: 52,551
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29038416
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/couqhdrop/pseuds/couqhdrop
Summary: Taken place a year after the events of The Hunchback of Notre Dame, the cathedral still stands, and within its confining stone walls, Quasimodo and his new wife, the mysterious Madellaine, explore the life of a newlywed couple. Just as troubles subside, Madellaine begins to have nightmares, unaware that her true destiny is about to change her marriage and her life forever.
Relationships: Phoebus de Châteaupers/Esméralda | Esmeralda, Quasimodo/Madellaine
Comments: 101
Kudos: 25





	1. Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

> Alrighty, this is my first ever fic posted to Archive of Our Own! I worked mainly on Wattpad, ff.net, and Quotev, but I decided to give this a try. 
> 
> To clear things up, I changed a few things about how Quasimodo and Madellaine met. I did not quite like the sequel but I loved the blonde-haired clumsy Madellaine, so her curiosity over the siege on Notre Dame and rumors of the mysterious bell ringer sends her to the steps of the fateful church. Her story is a mystery, but she did not join the circus until much much later. Toiled by the freedom she craved so out of her grasp, she needed a reason to live, and that's where Quasi came into the picture. Basically, the two fell in love, though this fic is set after the fact, as she encouraged him to bring out his best qualities, and after finally gaining her freedom with the help of Quasimodo, she married him.
> 
> This mainly touches on Madellaine as a character, or at least how I perceive her. I hope you find this story to be entertaining :)

Would Madellaine have roused from her sleep further, her subconscious would not have teased her once more with morbid, formless night terrors swirling behind her eyes as she slept beside her husband.

Another round of her small, 10-year-old doe eyes staring up from her tasteless porridge to meet the gaze of Sister Lucy. Now, normally the young woman was aware that she was submerged into another dream, yet this time, as with all times that came with this specific nightmare, she truly felt as if her body was smaller, her then-long golden locks whipping around her thin collarbone. Her eyes stung as dust blew about in the wind. Sitting politely outside at a splintery wooden table surrounded by her fellow dames of the convent and the nuns who cared for them, she saw Sister Lucy pause.

She felt something prod away at her psyche as if she was all-knowing and didn’t know at the same time what was about to sear into her memory forever.

Sister Lucy wasn’t familiar with the glowing young girl, nor was Madellaine. What little she did know about the middle-aged nun was her pious nature, strict rules, and overbearing regiment. The air licked her exposed, almost raw neck as she thought about how she was not allowed to pick at her food slowly, yet how she couldn’t scarf anything down like an animal either. There was always an in-between with this unpredictable woman, and it turned Madellaine ruddy in the cheeks when she thought of the frustration. She knew better than to complain, however, for she understood that she could not ask for more than she was given. Her mistresses could simply grow weary of her aches and pains and forget to feed her the little she got or allow her the meager time she had to rest before chore-time in the early dawn. She was a well-tempered, quiet lass, one who stood out from the rest of the fellow young French mademoiselles. She didn’t quite… look like the average young Parisian girl. While many had dark hair, slightly tanned skin, and earthy eyes, she had golden tresses, and crystal glossed blue orbs. Her skin was porcelain and she was so slender from malnutrition, as her body could never quite absorb the nutrients it needed properly, no matter how much she tried, that she blushed easily, even when she was not embarrassed or flattered. She had met other blondes, but very few at that, and she somehow had the gut feeling that there was something wrong with her. Almost like she was erased from her past, even if there was no past to behold. Sister Clemensia, a young gypsy nun whom Sister Lucy had taken in to set her straight, always told her that she would grow like a sprout and find herself there at the hem of the leaves, and only once they touched the tip of her head would she accept herself. Not that the little girl understood this, but she did not bother to argue, figuring that perhaps she would understand when she was older.

As Madellaine brought herself abruptly to the present, Sister Lucy’s face went pale, paler than the purest snow. Instead of barking commands at Madellaine, Livia, Persephone, and Jane to eat faster, she went deadly silent. Madellaine stared point-blank at her, bunching her white skirt in her small hands. Jane, the brunette, would-be bookworm if she knew how to read, also followed her peer’s gaze as a sinister crimson substance began to slowly trickle from the nun’s mouth. She let out a small cough, and then another, until she was lost in a heaving coughing fit, screaming and clawing desperately at her skinny neck, bony fingers attempting to push up the clotted bile in her throat, desperate to get a breath in. Blood spurted from her throat, landing all over the table, and while many of the girls cried out in terror, all Madellaine could do was stare, suppressing the lump of fear in her throat as Livia desperately grabbed her hand for comfort. The last thing Sister Lucy did before her soul gave up was stare straight into Madellaine’s aching eyes. Then, the last of the blood and foam dripped from her thin lips, and while the look of abhorrence sank into the girl’s very bones, the woman’s head dropped right into her poisoned wooden bowl of accursed porridge.

Madellaine found herself vomiting out of absolute repugnance for the sight she had just seen, and then… then everything went quiet. She heard the soft chime of… what? Bells? What on Earth?

Shooting up from her marital bed, a 22-year-old Madellaine let out a strangled sound from the depths of her throat, panting slightly and trembling. Bells… the bells of Notre Dame. She almost forgot where she was until she saw the silhouette of a man that stilled her heart like a lake after a storm. Quasi…

“Quasimodo…” she managed to let out, though mostly to herself.

The bells had startled the poor woman, and yet everything came back as the sun cast a glow onto her husband’s fiery red hair. Quasi, the traumatized woman’s husband and cathedral’s bell ringer, however, did not hear the girl’s cry as the deafening sound of Jean Marie, Anne Marie, and Louise Marie ruled out any other noise traveling through the Gothic, old cathedral.

Madellaine ran the tips of her long fingernails along the back of her cut, blonde hair, now short and cupping her slender, yet graceful face. Oh… what a nightmare.

She waited for the bells to stop ringing, but got lost in her own psyche as she attempted to do so, playing Sister Lucy’s death over and over in her head, turning it like an old rusted coin that still had immense value. Heads or tails, and yet both sides brought extreme discomfort that the young woman couldn’t process on her own.

By the time Quasimodo had finished, and the ringing in his poor ears had subsided (really, he thought to himself every day that it was a miracle that he wasn’t deaf), the golden morning sun had illuminated the rest of his features. The bell ringer of Notre Dame hopped down from the loft and almost hobbled over to Madellaine, his dearest wife, and as he came into view, Madellaine was calmed by his familiar, yet unusual features.

He was a handsome man, really he was, but his face wasn’t completely blessed. Atop his brow sat what Madellaine thought would be an extremely painful sore that limited his eyesight in his right eye. His smooth jaw was almost weighed down by his face’s reaction to the deformity, but not so much so that his wife could not appreciate what would have been an extremely handsome face. It had a charm to it that only Madellaine could quite capture. His irises were not the perfect shape, almost like splotches of the richest royal blue ink she had ever seen. They almost looked as delicious as his lips tasted.

His back was burdened by a spinal deformity that caused him to lean over. Among his right shoulder laid a mass of fragile muscle and bone that formed a hunchback on the bell ringer. Indeed, it got sore, and Madellaine would always try and remedy that with bits of her affection. This did not limit his height, however, and even when his wife would wear the highest shoes, he was still taller than her. The only one he could think of that he was not taller than was Phoebus, the captain of the guard who had married the illustrious gypsy woman Esmeralda.

Poor Quasimodo, the man who believed himself to be a monster. And try as his wife might, he could never look in a mirror and see with pleasant eyes.

“Quasi…” Madellaine’s voice was raw and eyes watery, “I need you.”

“Oh, love…” he knew her too well that it went without saying that she had been tormented with another dream, “I know. I get nightmares too.”

He brought his prized possession into his strong, toned arms, and Madellaine almost wanted to cry, get sick, or both… But Quasi’s tunic was too nice for her to violate with her bile, so she kept it in as best she could. Instead, what came out was an exhausted whimper as she buried her head into his neck.

“Why…” she whispered, “Why was she poisoned?”

“Dearest, if I knew, I would tell you,” he ran his fingers through her tangled hair, leaving a kiss into her golden waves, “I would go to the ends of the earth to rid you of these dreams.”

“I just…” she played with the frayed edges of the man’s sleeve, “Feel like I’m in danger. I don’t know why. It makes me not want to eat…”

“As long as I’m here, sweetheart, you are protected. I’ll prepare your food for you if it will ease your worries,” Quasi whispered in his gentle voice, lulling her into a calm stupor, “Alright?”

“Okay…” she squeaked, “T-Thank you, Quasi. I love you…”

“I love you more.”

Madellaine smiled teasingly and raised a brow, “Oh yeah?”

“Yep.”

They were both smiling now and Madellaine challenged this by grabbing him close and allowing him to lay her down, getting over her in her sleepwear, “No. I love you more.”

“You must be mistaken.”

“I’m not.”

“Prove it, my love.”

Madellaine reached up and kissed the man as passionately as her lips could manage. The man hummed into her soft, buttermilk lips and cupped her cheek. Madellaine could not help but giggle softly, her sorrow melting away under her strong husband’s kiss. They intertwined their fingers and sank into one another. Quasi knew that kisses always helped her feel better, just as they helped him when he was ailed.

“Hey, Quasi? You up here?”

The bell ringer separated from the kiss quickly at the sound of the ‘Sun God.’ Ugh. Phoebus. Of course, he ruined the tender moment, but he smiled and rose to greet him, as did the fellow blonde among the group, lovely Madellaine.

“Esmeralda…” Madellaine said warmly with a smile, walking forward to hug the gypsy woman who had accompanied the captain of the guard up the trip to the bell tower.

“Good morning,” came her low, husky voice, mature and yet sweet and genuine all the same. Her dark raven curls spilled down her tan shoulders as she hugged her best friend’s wife. The two women had become fast friends after Madellaine’s first encounter with Quasimodo, shortly after the defeat of Judge Claude Frollo, whose infamous burning of Paris led Madellaine on a curious hunt to see the Cathedral de Notre Dame for herself.

“So, Madellaine,” Phoebus’s powerful voice came, deep even in a whisper, “We brought some freshly made bread if you two want any for breakfast.”

“Yes,” Esmeralda affirmed, “We made it fresh just this morning.”

Madellaine felt a deep pit in her stomach, which craved for a bite to eat, and yet was filled on its own with paranoia. Sister Lucy’s eyes pierced into her soul and she nearly dropped the plate of food when it was transferred to her. Instead, taking the hint, Quasi quickly grabbed the platter from his wife’s shaking hands and set it gently down on his carving table where his various trinkets and wooden figures of the people of Paris laid lopsided. He had to remake most of them after his old master’s ranting and raving about how he had helped his former prisoner, Esmeralda, escape from Notre Dame. All the woman had done was stand up to Claude’s unruly injustice, and that landed her in a predicament that nearly cost her her own life. But Frollo… he was gone now, and there was nothing to fear about displaying the dark-haired gypsy dancer’s wooden figurine for all to see.

“Thank you,” Quasi smiled at the Romani woman and her husband, “We appreciate it.”

“Y-Yes, t-thank you,” Madellaine smiled in turn.

“Are you quite all right, dear?” Esmeralda murmured.

“Mhm.”

“Nightmares?”

Madellaine’s eyes widened a bit, and her glossy blue eyes met the seafoam green of the gypsy woman’s, “How did you know?”

“You don’t look like you’ve gotten much sleep, my friend,” the woman explained, “I have some herbs that might ease your sleep better.”

“Oh, it’s alright…”

Esmeralda peered over at the two men who seemed to be conversing about God knows what, and it seemed like the perfect time to pull the blonde aside.  
“No, I can’t stand to see you skittish like this. Neither can Quasi… He’s worried about you. He came to me last night asking me for advice.”

“H-He did?” she almost flinched at the new wave of information.

“Yes. He hears you wake every night when you have such nightmares. I’m so sorry that you’re tormented.”

So that’s really why she came up to see us, Madellaine mused, she wants to help… but can she?

“Here,” the dancer whispered, passing along a silk pouch into Madellaine’s cold hands, “These will help you sleep. It should help the dreams, too.”

Madellaine stared down at the little thing in an almost distrusting manner. She felt the herbs on the inside creating ridges among the smooth silk. She knew she could trust her, she knew it in the depths of her heart, but… Sister Lucy…

“Thank you, Esmeralda, truly.”

Instead of being rude, the clumsy former convent girl smiled genuinely and accepted the gift. Esmeralda always had things like these that aided in physical or spiritual health. That was what made the woman so interesting to the younger female, she always knew what to do. And above all, she was reliable. That was probably what helped her accept the pouch fully, hoping above all else that she could finally get a good night’s sleep.  
-

_"NO! QUASI!"_

“Madellaine!”

Panting and wheezing, it sank into Madellaine that she should have taken those herbs before she fell asleep. Cries of anguish escaped along with her heaving breath, and she went numb, not feeling the hands of her husband steady upon her trembling shoulders. She let out another yelp, this time out of anguish. Flashes of memory lashed through her brain, the nightmare still all so fresh, and yet instead of strict Sister Lucy, the dead woman who had assisted in raising her for a short time, it was Quasimodo who was spluttering on his own boiled, poisoned blood, his body desperate to rid itself of the liquid death as he screamed, though he screamed in a manner that was much unlike her husband. It was ear piercing, shrill and bone-chilling, and as soon as the man in her dream grabbed her shoulders violently and brought his disfigured face close, he screamed even louder. His eyes exploded with blood that was so dark, so rotted, it was almost black. His mouth flayed wide open, nose gushing that same midnight substance of his very life, the volume of his violent yelling escalating by the second.

“Madellaine? Madellaine!” Quasi urged, bones chattering at the very sight of his wife curl against herself and begin to sob. Her wails were soft, yet so painful and deep as if the nightly dreams were beginning to chip away at her sanity. She had already been broken by life and misguided in a way she was unclear of, but all she could think of was her husband’s face as he died and was possessed by the loudest bellowing she had ever heard. Hiccups punctured her almost squeaky sobs as she was enflamed by yet another anxiety attack.

“Why does this keep happening to me…?!” she cried in anguish, _"Why?!"_

Quasimodo felt his heart shatter like glass as his wife began to pound at her head, trying to shake the nightmares out of her psyche much like trying to push water out of her ears. Weeks of reminders and sleep deprivation erupted in an agonizing scream of infuriated utter frustration. Seeing Sister Lucy die over and over was enough, but not the man she loved. NOT the man she loved. She even blamed herself for her subconscious concocting such a visual terror. Quasimodo had never scared her, nothing about him was chilling, but that scream… that blood…

“Stop that!” Quasimodo used his strength to his advantage and snatched the girl’s wrists, “Sweetheart, you need to calm down…”

“Ngh…!” she squeaked, her voice hoarse, hot tears pouring out of her sore eyes. Too much have they seen, way too much…

“Darling…”

Her hearing slowly tapered into focus, blurry, teary eyes finally clearing as she looked upon the clean, concerned face of the Parisian bell-ringer. All she could do was lunge forward and beg him with her trembling form to hold her.

He wound his arms around her back, still jerking with sobs, and began to brainstorm ideas to finally put his dearest wife, the golden sunshine in his bitter existence, at ease. It crushed every part of him to see her suffer like this. She had always stolen his breath away with her beauty, but tonight, the wind being knocked out of him was out of pure heartbreak. She wasn’t eating, she wasn’t sleeping…

He knew that he had to be the one to lift her up. He had to protect her.  
-  
Many knew fear. Many knew deprivation. All too many humans were without something needed in their lives that it felt overwhelmingly unjust. But injustice, for some, was what bound a nation together. Keeping a people’s spirit low, spreading about eggshells upon the land, it was all a tactic to make the matriarch stronger. Allowing just a small cuplet of hope amongst a barren land was all Bellamy needed to sustain her ironclad grip upon her subjects. As long as they had the hope to escape, she could pull her marionette strings as hard as she could to land on top. That was her profession, her lifeline.

Deep in the northeast coast of an island off the shore from Scotland, a kingdom was born. Risen from the ashes of rebellion against the tyranny of Chancellor Demigir, the kingdom of Corinthia, a matriarchal society of which women wore the crown, populated and a queen, a sovereign ruler was appointed. Corinthia of the Corinthians, land congested with marketplaces to ports, to the light-haired population packed so tightly, there were structures dotted on the very borders. From the poorest sectors of the kingdom to the leisurely blondes of Sector 1, the multicultural crown jewel of Scotland’s lost, mountainous terrain. From mighty cliffs that magnified the sound of the awe-inspiring Corinthian song, to the soft hills and meadows in which only the poorest people could play. The kingdom was divided by class into sectors, 4 in total, which formed rings around the dear, lesser-known kingdom. On the outskirts of the island-like kingdom lay Sector 4, the group of peasants who fished for their nourishment and the nourishment of the whole kingdom. Poverty was cratered worse in this sector than any other, so much so that people perished of malnourishment and plague every day. They are deemed halflings by the rest of the population, these people, as their colonies knew little of soap, and infection and illness were almost guaranteed. Despite the outcries of death every day, of empty stomachs that were ready to snap their spines in two, and clothes too-tight that left the people ambling around in their wind-tattered clothing, the jade green meadows and warm beaches were the only ray of hope the people of Sector 4 had. Most were illiterate, so the young had little to do all day as their parents slaved at the docks. The frail, brown-haired young ones would run among the meadows until their feet ached, and this was how it always had been.

Sector 3… the people do not speak of rubbled Sector 3. Under any circumstance.

Sector 2 was the bridge between luxury and poverty. While most of the strawberry blonde citizens lived fairly comfortable lives in their suburban homes, if any were to have a taste of what Sector 1 had to offer, they would move in an instant. Food is richest there, and the people of the wooded Sector 2 had the job of lumber, pastry, and architecture. The architecture is heavily modeled after a mixture of Parisian and Scottish design, and the national architect, Istrata Rent, was one of the best builders to walk the earth. Some say his gothic, yet graceful designs were those of heaven’s villages.

Mountainous Sector 1 was the richest, most luxurious and pious group of people the world would ever know. While their style differed heavily from the rest of the kingdom, bright bolts of color-rich silks accenting and glimmering their platinum blonde and golden hair. Rich white linen silk hugged their rich, plump bodies, as the food and gluttony were aplenty. The beauty of the pampered was enough to put anyone into a rapture, but if anyone from Sector 4 saw their pompous arses prancing around their land, they were in for a beating. Everything seemed to glow there, with the golden, marble palace being the crown jewel of the entire kingdom. There was arrogance and ignorance among these people, their easy lives enough to make anyone’s blood boil until it evaporated into the better part of their conscience, the one that restrained from hatred, of loathing, of blinding violence. The golden sun-children of Sector 1 lived in bliss, protected by their matriarch, their beautiful regent named-

“Lady Bellamy…”

“What is it, Flavius?”

“Madame, I…” the young man’s voice cracked as if he hadn’t the strength to speak to such a woman, “We…”

“Spit it out, boy.”

He took a deep breath and reached a warm, calloused hand into his cravat, pulling out a rumpled piece of parchment. Upon it was a tattered, sun-soaked illustration of a man and a woman. The man was extremely tall and domineering, and even in such an illustration, you could tell what he was all about. A long, striped cape was cloaking his slim figure, black, shoulder-length hair cupping his delicate, angular jawline. Thick black brows were furrowed into a smug grin, and above his pampered head lay the name Sarousch.  
To his right was a breathtaking view. A short, blonde-haired, blue-eyed Sector 1 woman, with a short, red dress hugging her pale body. Her smile seemed almost forced, almost pained…

And above her was the name Madellaine.

_Madellaine._

“I believe we’ve found her, your majesty.”

“Pardon me?” the matriarch gasped, the heart, or whatever was left of it in her chest halted entirely, “You better not be joking with me, Quatre!”

“I am not, madame, I would never, your majesty, h-here- “

Before poor Flavius could finish his sentence, he felt the delicate paper snatched from his weak grip. He squeaked slightly, hoping it was not torn, because if he had assisted in ripping the only evidence of their lost lady, he would surely get punished.

After the platinum-haired, thirty-seven-old matriarch finished flitting her eyes over the illustration, soaking up the essence of the lost Sector girl, the curls of her thin lips decorated with laughter lines made way for her pearly white teeth as the woman smiled.

“Madellaine… blonde little Madellaine really lives…” she giggled gently, “That’s the girl. That’s the princess.”

“Madame?” the young boy teetered back and forth nervously, pending her response, “What shall we… what shall we do?”

“Find my brother, Lord Jehan.”


	2. Chapter Two

“Madellaine…”

The blonde woman barely made a shift under her sheets. She blinked quite slowly.

“Oh, come on, dearest, you must eat something.”

The girl wrenched her eyes shut and let out a trembled, forlorn breath. Quasimodo was nearly on the verge of a breaking point. What had happened to his sunshine? Nighttime wasn’t supposed to roll on this long, and it was as if the wretched clouds were so opaque over her once vibrant and graceful personality that he could barely see it anymore. The only window inside of her soul was her eyes, and yet even those were muted, nearly grey, even. The girl’s eyes were the hue of the dawn of new spring, fresh crystalized sea, glossed over to create a gem-like vortex. Webs of sea foam were sewn about, creating what seemed like someone had replaced her pupils with the most precious gem found at the depths of the sea. Yet despite the wisdom and mystery that were espoused to her vessels of sight, there was no age in those wide eyes. They projected unearthly purity, modesty, and innocence, especially when the morning sun glistened over the smooth glass of the surface that had shed thousands of tears. They were precious, almost delicious to look at, and seeing them for the first time in the morning always gave him the will to get up. Madellaine was what had sewn back the last vestiges of his sanity after what Claude had done to him, and yet every day she was suffering like this, a string snapped. Victor, Hugo, and Laverne had even stopped talking to him at the peak of their marriage, but now… they were just as in distress as he was.

“I made this, dearest, there’s nothing to fear.”

No matter how dearly she trusted her husband, her stomach would not give way into hunger. She reached out and grabbed it, but merely played with the roll of bread as If it were made of glass. Not delicate and precious, but bound to cause trouble if she were not careful. “Quasi, I…”

“Please, dearest…” he sank to his knees to gaze into her eyes, searching deep within them to find his Madellaine, “Just one bite? For me, love?”

Her eyes flickered downwards towards the bread, the texture in her hands feeling quite pleasant. The smell wafting through the tower was mouth-watering all the same. She looked back into Quasi’s romantic, royal blue eyes, which were pleading, on the verge of tears. She didn’t want to make him cry… She brought the fluffy thing to her mouth, and Quasi’s eyes lit up in excitement. Never before had he been so excited to see someone eat. She took a small bite, a cautious one, and yet her undying trust that Quasi would protect her was what drove her teeth in further. Quasimodo, believe it or not, was quite a good baker, she noted, as she began to nibble at the bread. Cooking wasn’t either of their fortes, usually, they would buy from the market or eat the generous Romani meals Esmeralda had brought up to their tower for them.

Quasi knew, though, that she was wary of poison ever since the memory of Sister Lucy had come back to haunt her. If Madellaine trusted him, perhaps she’d eat…

And she did.

It was as if blue flame had sparked behind her eyes as she finally nourished herself. She had no idea how truly hungry she was until she began to eat. Quasi made this? It was so good…

“Thank you, love…” she smiled.

“Thank _you_ , sweetheart.”

-

“His Grace, Lord Jehan, brother of Regent Bellamy.” After a pause, the two siblings awaiting the page boy’s leave, clicked into place were late Claude’s bastard half-siblings’ eyes.

“Walk with purpose, dear brother,” Bellamy’s silver eyes spoke of no good, that much Jehan could see. He knew the roguish grin was lost, however, not directed towards him, but towards something much more sinister. Jehan clicked his tongue as he strode further.

“Bella, what purpose might that be? I’ll never rule this place.”

“You mustn’t be so pessimistic,” Bella chided, softly striking the top of his head with her fan, “Claude would not be pleased.”

“ _Claude_ ,” his voice was filled with venom, “Isn’t here. He _left_ us.”

“Ah,” she laughed softly and got up from the throne, the golden velvet against her silk gown echoed across the vast, pillared hallways of the throne room. Many years of rich, matriarchal voices concocting schemes and plans laid there in the very hall, and Bellamy was not averse to adding upon the pages.

“Claude was our brother,” she reminded, “And now he is in Hell. Unfortunate, but what bitterness can we hold after death, Jehan? Answer me that.”

“Half-brother,” the older man corrected, so obviously bitter in every angle of his frame that it radiated off of him like dingy smoke from a suppressed fire, “Any man who abandons his family is no man.”

“In this world,” her voice grew loud and demanding, yet still calm, “Where men finally no longer have control over the reins of this kingdom, what power, what purpose could pure, virtuous Claude have beseeched here? Especially before the birth of our lost Sector girl?”

“It’s…” Jehan was about to rebuttal that family was worth more than any power he could hold in small Corinthia, but… “H-He chose not to marry. He could have- “

“You hesitated, big brother,” she sneered teasingly.

“Bellamy, would you permit me to speak?” he was losing his patience.

“Proceed.”

“Perhaps you are right,” he muttered, “But it could have gone differently. Marry the girl, and Claude would have been king consort.”

“And you, dear Jehan,” she now had her back turned to him, “Would not.”

“What are you implying?”

She reached into her brassiere and pulled out the worn advertisement for Cirque de Sarousch. Without so much as another word, her slender fingers transferred their clue into her brother’s icy hands. Before he could say a word, she piped up again. “We found her. You can choose to stay bitter at Claude and be miserable here,” her lips curled up once more, “Or… we can avenge his murder. What sounds better?”

Bellamy’s interruption had cut off all means of processing such information, so all Jehan could do was stare doe-eyed at the girl, the lost Corinthian dauphine. She was… alive…? She was a member of a circus? What? Avenge Claude? What did that have to do with anything? She was beautiful… Was there finally a way he could-?

“You’re not talking, Jehan,” she cut through his train of thought like a knife through softened wax.

“I don’t understand…” he mumbled in his deep voice.

“We found this… tch…” she rolled her eyes at the memory of the pompous, fluffy little Sarousch character, “ _Sarousch_ performing in our very kingdom by the time this flyer was found. He’s in our dungeons and he has some information that will be of use to you.”

“You’re not making any sense, woman!” he bellowed, “Just spit it out, no need to be so _cryptic_.”

She tittered, seeming to be unphased by this sudden outburst, and walked ever so closer to her brother. She spoke slowly, almost as if taunting him and disparaging his intelligence. His cheeks blazed red as soon as she opened her glossy, thin lips. “Go to the _dungeon_. Man on the flyer _IN_ the dungeon. Knows where Princess _Madellaine_ is. Information…” she laughed sinisterly, (and also a bit at the fact that she was agitating her brother so much that smoke was practically shooting from his ruddy ears) “ _Interesting_.”

-

 _Ugh,_ Jehan mused, _why does this place smell so... rancid?_

He almost felt bad for the prisoners who dwelled there in the smell of their own waste. Well, _almost._

Illuminating his torch among unfamiliar, famished faces made him scoff. They all looked so pitiful that it made him sour. How dare they look that way when it was their own wrongdoing that landed them in their cells in the first place? He looked left in right among the long, clammy hallway until he saw what looked to be the man in the portrait. What a stark contrast it was, this man Sarousch, who seemed so confident and smug in his portrait to the shivering coward seen curled up on the wooden cot in his cell. Jehan took a double look at the paper, and then at the man's face. Painted with dirt, but the same, defiant looking black eyes.

"Look this way," came the late judge's brother's speech, profound and effectual, befitting that of a king or even God himself. Sarousch, the former circus ringleader, winced at the sound and began to tremble at the sight of the glistening sword among the stranger's belt. As soon as the men's eyes met, black to black, blending and bleeding into the attempted stalemate on Sarousch's part, Jehan reached through the bars and seized his tattered collar, jerking him abruptly so that their faces were mere inches apart. 

"Where is she?!"

"Where is _who_?! What do you _want_ from me?"

"Don't play dumb, you son of a bitch," he seethed, his tone going from turbulent to poisonous, the trait about him most men feared. He could still _anyone_ with his icy character alone, "Where is she? Where is the princess?"

"The _princess_?!" Sarousch glanced to the heavens, "You've got the wrong man, I don't know what you're speaking of!"

Their eyes snapped as Jehan propelled him to the filthy cell floor. Something about this man wasn't right, he always could tell since Claude had first begun to drift apart from him like the Nile river had steered Moses from his brother Aaron. Only it was _Claude's_ doing that he disembarked in the icy waters, and his cradle woven with ambition and the beginnings of apathy had driven him away from the life of nobility at court. Somehow he understood, and yet it was his loneliness that made him yearn for the years they spent as boys under the rule of Queen Sadie. The nights they would sneak from their suite in the palace and ride their horses away from the walls of Sector 1, into the unknown terrain of Sector 3...

Their father forbade them from nearly anything, as their family held high favor with Her Majesty and her husband, Adelaide. But the boys did not heed the requirements and ached to explore, Claude especially. He was the eldest child, the golden one, who did no wrong in the eyes of their father. So, when they were caught, Jehan was perpetually the one to always be rebuked, yet his big brother had done anything to help get him out of trouble... 

Jehan had _loved_ Claude... and for him to leave...

"Do you know, or did you, a woman by the name of _Madellaine_?"

The very memory of his little 'trinket' who had _defied_ him with the help of some monster made him swallow the fire in his cheeks, burning down his throat and landing in the pits of his fury. If she didn't desire his guidance, then she could starve, be whored out on the streets for her bread. He didn't need her if she didn't need him.

"What about her...?" Sarousch tried to avoid the question. She was dead to him, so he did _not_ know her.

"Would you happen to know where the girl is today?"

The circus ringleader gritted his pearly teeth, his fury sizzling at the recollection of the freak who had misguided _his_ Madellaine. _His_.

"She left me," came the man's defeated voice, "She left me for a monster."

"Did I ask that, fool?" Jehan hissed, balling his fists, "Where _is_ she?"

"Have you heard the tale of the bell ringer of Notre Dame?"

The bell ringer of Notre Dame... _Claude's bell ringer! That... that..._

"You mean..." Jehan's eye twitched involuntarily, _"Quasimodo?"_

_-_

"Quasimodo?"

Madellaine breathed in the sweet air of Paris, of stone gargoyles and freshly made boulanger bread. 

"Yes?"

"I'm sorry..." she whispered.

"You have nothing to apologize for, love..."

The spouses of Notre Dame were seated on the ledge of the left bell tower's roof. Quasi had thought some fresh air would help his wife, and the much-needed oxygen brought back the smidges of blue in her eyes that had been lost. Her eyes were gently closed as he raised a hand to her back, though the ledge was broad and not precarious, he wanted to make sure she didn't doze off and tumble after his master. The deformed man knew how to hide unwanted emotions, unwanted memories, which was why his nightmares rarely woke him or Madellaine. Two decades of keeping everything to himself, only sharing to stone creatures that he wasn't sure were even really alive, paid off into his freedom. It was as though, even after Frollo's laws and life had been wiped away on the night he had saved his dearest friend Esmeralda from the pire (the woman he thought he would have married had Phebous not stolen her heart) Claude's bony, ringed hands were still puppeting his damaged brain from the gates of Hell. Madellaine's goal was to sever the strings of Claude's twenty-year-long game, but twenty years of reinforcement was enough to make the job long and tedious. Though she had blessedly never met Paris's former tyrannical judge, she hated him all the same for what he had done to the undeserving man she loved. Not only that, but what she couldn't stand the most was how he used the name of her lord and savior Jesus Christ as a segway to destruct everything in his path.

Monster, wretch... these words had never escaped the poor man, even to the present day. As much as he loved his wife with all of his heart, every part of his being fused with her that it was unimaginable they weren't one person, one entity, she could never wipe away the clouds over his self-esteem. She could only shine her majestic light behind Claude's cemented storms, making him forget he was a monster for moments that were worth more than Holy Grail itself. The way she danced in the rain, the way she knew him better than he knew himself, the way she treasured every inch of him, the imperfections that had gotten rotted food thrown at him at the Festival of Fools... She seemed to be God's best masterpiece, as if his most vibrant colors had gone into her elegance. He had painted her with a brush of gold, on the inside and outside. Her chartreuse, simple gown blown in the wind as she sang to him on the balcony... The waves of angelic song from her cherry lips wasn't perfect, but it was _her_. Her... his _wife_...

Madellaine didn't see his deformities as imperfections. Why, how many men had she seen with that classic jawline, boring old eyes, hair, nose, body? Every man she passed on the street all blended into a muted grey hodgepodge of familiarity, but Quasimodo's face was unlike anything she had seen, and she _loved_ it. She loved the way he chimed the bells in the morning to wake the city, the way he attempted to blow his messy hair out of his eyes, his charming smile, the little things that others in the world dejectedly took for granted. His eyes were piercing, almost glowing, like sapphire fireflies amidst the wild auburn hair she craved to touch. How could such a cruel man like Claude have brought up someone as magnificent as Quasi, the most compassionate and radiant man she believed to walk the earth? He loved her beyond reason and it truly made her feel as if she was basking in warmth every time he stroked her hair and called her his wife. She was his wife... how lucky was she of all women to have the best husband on Earth?

It seemed as though nothing could go wrong for the pair. The newlyweds did everything together, kept no secrets from one another Even their private time underneath the sheets as the moon spilled over their forms, lost in one another, forgetting everything and anyone except for their companion was perfect. Absolutely perfect...

"Quasi?"

"Mm?"

"Remember the night you asked me to marry you?"

"How could I forget?" Madellaine swore she heard him smile, "Why?"

"No reason..." she replied in her gentle voice, "It just feels so good to be free..."

"It couldn't get better than this, love."


	3. Chapter Three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The beginning of this story is graphic and quite tragic, so if you are uncomfortable with vivid depictions of violence, I suggest skipping the part in italic. I'll leave a basic explanation of what happened at the end since it does tie into the story as an important reason why Madellaine was parted from her homeland.
> 
> December 30th is actually my birthday, believe it or not, so that is why I was so specific with the date.

_"Your Majesty! The princesses!"_

_Sadie's head had never fired up so promptly at the sound of her steward's voice. She shut the book in her clutches so swiftly that she nearly tore the page she had been viewing with her unexpected surge of strength. Truly, the queen had a strength that was unbecoming of such a petite woman as she was. Adelaide, her faithful king, had seen her sizzle in the rain, seen the resilience in the way she walked, strode, took her place on her throne on the eve of her sixteenth birthday. She even danced with more force than was necessary, grace being lost in the way she nearly flung herself at her subjects, whisking them onto the sleek finish of the ballroom's floor. Adelaide, the gentle drizzle that never failed to dampen her fire when it blazed and scorched others with its depth, knew she was special the moment her spark had etched into his skin, his bones, his heart. He never could extinguish it, not quite... but he was content to keep it that way. Nobody could put out his queen, his Sadie, his wife..._

_Without a moment to spare, Queen Sadie picked up her tanned-white skirts and ran after Lennon, her castle steward, whose voice never quibbled above the standard, deep monotone. Mysterious and clouded with something she couldn't put her finger on, Lennon's voice betrayed his emotions hoarded up inside. But it was his turn to betray his vocal fortress on the morning of December 30th, 1460, just after the most tranquil Christmas Eve since her own birth. Lennon's voice carried such an alarm, almost like a normal man's, that Sadie almost knew right away what she would see when opening the door to her daughter, Madellaine's room. The girl, merely three years old, sat screaming, moaning, wailing, clutching her upper forearm which dripped with fiery blood. Great purple welts splattered her skin, much like the drip of her young blood on the unforgiving stone floor. Sadie's cry of horror only worsened as she traveled her sage, cloudy eyes downwards, where she was greeted with a much more grotesque sight._

_"ETHEL!"_

_While Lennon moved quickly to pick up the older princess, still bleeding as her angry wound threatened to leak away her very life, drop by drop onto the palace floors, Sadie dropped to her knees. Her youngest daughter, Ethel, merely an infant, was torn into with a blade as if she was nothing more than the royal family's afternoon meal. Her attacker, whomever they could be, had been 'courteous' enough to close her listless eyes with his bloodied fingers, leaving stains on her small lids. Her mother was at a loss for words, and before she could cry out for the Lord to help her, she got sick all over the rug, coughing and heaving bile as rivulets of tears stung her cheeks._

_"Get Madellaine out of here!" she cried out, grabbing her daughter's body desperately as her body fought losing consciousness, "G-Get help! Somebody, anybody!"_

_"Mama!" the older infant cried as she was swiftly taken from her sister, "Papa!"_

_"It's alright, dear, shhh!" Lennon's breath fell short as he ran as fast as he could to find the king, "I'm going to patch you up, okay?"_

_"Mmh...! MAMA!" the small princess wept, desperately trying to wiggle from his grasp, but she lost energy fast as her blood discolored her escort's uniform into a muddy purple._

_After her wound was bound in a silk tourniquet from the man's very vest, he ordered guards and medics to the princess's bed chambers to protect the queen and perhaps assist with Ethel's revival. Poor, small Madellaine could only whimper as the air stung her raw skin, begging to see her papa, her mama, but her education had slacked behind due to the girl's wild imagination. She could barely speak in full sentences despite her three years, whether by choice or not. The princess would slack off during her tutoring, instead daydreaming about avid knights and the sound of the church bells ringing when he had slain the beast. She could not imagine her way out of this, though, all she could think about was what had just happened and why..._

_Almost an hour later, with the culprit never discovered and captured, King Adelaide, God bless the poor man, had swiftly come to his oldest daughter's aide, the sweet princess who no longer wore her classic smile. As soon as she saw him, she couldn't even manage it, merely reaching out her arms to the man who was about to make one of the hardest decisions of his life._

_"Papa...?"_

_-_

Quasimodo knew that there were things that could be left unspoken between him and his wife. If there was subject matter he deemed unnecessary to bring up for the other, he always refrained. He knew what it was like for unwanted strangers to prick him with questions about Claude Frollo's death. " _What had happened?_ " they asked, _"How'd you do it?" "Do you forgive him?"_ _What more do they need to know?_ Quasi mused, but he indulged them for as long as he could stand them. But... did he forgive him? Forgive that sick bastard that raised him? Of _course_ not! How could he get on with his accursed life knowing that he 'forgave' someone who would never have begged for his forgiveness? No matter how little the hunchback valued himself, he knew that Claude did not deserve his forgiveness for what he had done to him and his friend, Esmeralda, whom he loved dearly. He knew that his closure was the punishment of that wretched man deep in Hell where he was sent when he took away his life. 

So if Madellaine ever asked him that, he would feel betrayed. He would never want to bring that feeling towards her by asking what her scar had come from.

But even if Quasimodo asked her, she would not have an answer for him. She had been asking herself that same question for her entire life, scanning her brain for an explanation. The only thing she could remember was the faint remnants of what sounded like a woman screaming the name... _Ethel_... but no visual memory was linked to it, no matter how hard she tried to summon it. No matter the headaches that resulted from the mystery, no matter how deep her scar ran like a tread in the soil, she had no idea if that even had anything to do with her long-since healed injury. Her earliest memories were in the convent, and she knew nobody by the name of Ethel, only a baby princess who had been murdered years prior. The rumors traveled around the convent in hushed whispers, and Madellaine was not one to gossip, so she got little out of it anyway. Besides, Ethel was a common name among her folk. So the rumors were irrelevant to her mystery. 

Who Ethel was, she didn't think she would ever know. The former circus thief tried to put on an air of indifference, but one thing about the young woman was her desire to know more, her desire to understand things that had no answers. She even thought that if she had never met Quasimodo and fallen in love with him, she would probably be spending her days wandering the earth in search of such answers that seemed so close, yet so far. 

One more thing she had always wanted to know was why she had been educated in more than one language, French and Scottish, when she was a peasant girl in a _French_ convent. Women were scarcely permitted to learn even one, she knew that her fellow peers at her former home were illiterate, so why on Earth was she special enough to have learned more? Her memories of her second language were foggy, almost tucked away in an unused cabinet in her subconscious, as nobody around her spoke such a tongue. When she asked Sister Victoria about why she must muck around learning a useless language, the older woman didn't give her so much as an answer. The woman looked down at her, merely replying in her English accent, broken French words coming out like an unturned cittern, "Girl, do not let Sister Lucy hear such questions. To teach you, I was brought. Nothing more."

These mysteries left a vague spot within her. She barely even knew who she was, why she was in a convent, why everything had happened the way it did. Hell, the only thing she knew about herself was that her name was Madellaine. She hadn't a last name, for she had come from no household. _Had I even any parents? Was I just put on this earth as an experiment of God?_

What probably was the biggest thing that connected herself to her husband was their mutual feeling of being outcasted. Quasi had been raised believing himself to be an abandoned mistake, the only creature to take pity on such deformities being his former master. Though he finally learned of the true story about his parents, he still had to deal with society's system of making pariah out of those who did not look like them. He saw it through people of color, much like Esmeralda and her gypsy lackeys, being shunned for something they could not control. While his pale complexion did not make the task of fitting in harder than it already was, the people of Paris, and even the whole world, seemed to need _convincing_ that he was a good man. The whiplash of tone from the people from the Festival of Fools to the conquest of Frollo was absolutely unbelievable. Would he have to bide his time until they got intoxicated once more, the evil of the world coming out through one swig at a time, to hate him? Was alcohol what got him tied down and stoned before the eyes of Notre Dame? No, no he knew it was deeper than that. If only he could take a knife to his imperfections, just sever them off so he could be ordinary... or perhaps even some days when the weight of the world seemed to be too much, just carve out his heart and be done with it. Madellaine's love for him was too genuine to be true. Sometimes he wondered if she was a figment of his imagination, just as his gargoyle companions proved to be as he grew older. 

But he knew once his lips met hers, once his hands felt the spun gold of her locks, that she was real... Oh, Lord, how real this woman was. A real woman who had genuine affection for him... What a miracle...

He knew as long as she wept under the silver moonlight that he had to wipe her tears away. No matter what. He was her protector. There was no afterlife without Madellaine. She was his heaven, the heaven's light upon his deformed face, so he had to walk the Earth for her. Life was always worth living when it had something as pure as his wife.

-

"My name is Madellaine. I am an orphan from Reims, France. I was raised in a convent. I joined a circus, and I escaped..."

Knuckle in mouth, the golden-haired lass lay quietly in her bed amidst yet another crisis of identity. Who was she? Who _was_ she? 

"I am the wife of Quasimodo, the bell ringer of Notre Dame... I..."

What more? There was nothing more to her at all. God in Heaven, what did her husband see in her? She was a beautiful girl, she knew that much from the sleazy men drunkenly calling out to her among the streets, even as young as eleven these men wanted her attention. But... she knew Quasi saw something else in her. He had always said that he saw something in her that she didn't, but he was never specific. She knew Quasi loved her, but why? Why? _Why?_

Repeating what she knew about herself never helped, no matter how much Sister Clemensia had told her it would strengthen her identity. But she resorted to it every time her mind wandered to this particular corner of self-discovery. When she looked at Esmeralda, she saw a woman who had everything together. Confidence, allure, intelligence, grace.. Madellaine was a clumsy, insecure, former thief, and she saw nothing more or nothing less than that. But why? Why didn't she know herself as the gypsy woman, almost identical in age did? How come Quasimodo was more familiar with how she would feel about something than she was?

Suddenly, she heard footsteps. She figured Quasimodo was back from his evening run to the market just before he rang the bells for Vespers, but the footsteps were not right, not at all. She knew that he took care in how he walked, for his balance was thrown off on some days due to his back, but these steps were angry, almost impending. She grabbed her blanket and pushed it aside, cautiously swinging her feet over the side of the bed and stepping into her dark flats. That was not Quasi, no matter how angry or peeved her husband could possibly be from his short little trip to town.

Then, the footsteps duplicated, one by one, until she could make out at least three people climbing the stairs to her husband's sanctuary. She brushed the pads of her fingers along her old scar and tried to steady her heart rate, slightly backing away into the frame of the bed. She squeaked and then very swiftly covered her mouth to try and stifle any more unwanted noises. _Oh, Quasi... where are you?_

She craned her head back to catch a glimpse of the balcony's view of the city, to maybe see if she could spot her husband on his way home, but he was either still on his way, or already in the cathedral. She hoped the latter was true as she went void of thought, having no idea who or what was impeding her perfect sanctuary. It was not Phebous or Esmeralda, she knew that as well, for the footsteps would have been interrupted by the noises of post-marital flirting and gentle kisses. She knew footsteps, having been raised among two strict environments. She knew who would be coming if she had heard their footsteps, but these were foreign to her. 

First, a head peeped out from the old stairwell, that of another blonde woman, and it was Madellaine's turn to hide, just like Quasi had when he had first met her. She made to, but being her tactless self, she tumbled over a snag in the rug beneath the bed and landed on the floor with an 'oomph!'

Well, if she were to be killed, she hadn't made the best first impressions on her future assailants. 

A harmonious, richer than gold female voice rang out just as soon as her silver eyes caught view of her, Madellaine, her princess. Eleven long years of searching after she had vanished at the convent, and her lost princess was before her once more.

_"Your Majesty...!"_

Her mouth fell agape as her cohorts followed suit into a low, unanimous curtsy, and Madellaine took a step back, furrowing her brow. She hadn't the time to say anything before they were shoved aside in an unceremonious fashion, and Madellaine came face to face with someone she instantly regretted coming across, no matter how mysterious this stranger's motives were. Jehan. Jehan Frollo.

"It really is her," his deep voice mumbled, the most awestruck it had been since he was a boy, and he grabbed her chin, jerking it upwards to face him. She wrenched out of his grip with a dried out noise from her parched throat.

"Dearest princess, we meet again at last."

-

"Sweetheart, I'm-"

Quasimodo went blank of speech as he reached the top of his stairwell, seeing the room devoid of his wife. He set down the goods he had brought on a nearby stool and called out again.

"Madellaine? Are you home?"

Nobody answered. 

"Love?"

Madellaine was not one to leave without warning, she had no reason to unless she was in trouble. How quickly could she have made plans in his swift leave to the shops? Something was wrong. Her shoes were missing, but she hadn't switched her clothes as she usually would when leaving Notre Dame. He also noticed that in this chilled weather, she hadn't retrieved her cloak or even so much as left a _note_ for him. 

He dropped the vial of goat's milk from his left hand, not caring that it began to soak up onto the crevises of the wooden floorboards, and took off as swift as he could down the stairs. He nearly toppled over several times, but he overlooked it and made a beeline for the door.

_So help me God, if You've done something to take my only ray of sunshine away, I'm not sure if I can ring Your bells any longer._

_-_

_"P-Papa... Papa!"_

_"Listen to me, sweetie, shh..."_

_"Ethel!" Madellaine cried, "M-Mama!"_

_"I need you to listen, listen my child."_

_Little Princess Madellaine went still, save for her relentless whimpering and hiccupped child's sobs. Her father made to grip her arms but arrested himself at the last moment when his heart tore at the sight of her wound. Adelaide resorted to cupping her tiny hands in his, trying to control his own vicious trembling. He had no choice, not unless he wanted his second daughter torn to shreds as well by whatever monstrosity decided to rip their family apart, deprive him of his two girls. She was the future queen, the fate of their nation, and so for the good of his kingdom, the good of his family, and especially the good of his daughter, a convent seemed the only viable option._

_"Papa's gonna have to send you away for a little while, alright?"_

_"H-Huh...?"_

_"It's not safe here..." the king whispered tenderly, yet cautiously "I'm going to send you to a place where it is safe, alright? Only for a little while until we find out who hurt your sister. Do you understand?"_

_No matter how terrified the young girl was, so much so that she wanted to vomit, she shakily nodded her head and wiped away her globs of tears with her good hand. He was battling as hard as he did in the rebellion not to cry, to stay as strong as the walls of the kingdom dam not to make his daughter even more afraid._

_"Papa...?"_

_Adelaide's walls cracked slightly as he let out a strangled whimper, wrapping his arms around his remaining little girl, careful not to brush against her wound and cause her more pain. She would be miles away, his daughter, shipped to a foreign country so that she could never be tracked down. They needed to get to the bottom of this, rid the palace of the evil beseeched upon them that fateful winter's night. The brittle snow blew hard against the frosted over windows as he shared his final embrace with his daughter._

_Little did he know that he would never find the man who killed his baby. Little did he know, he'd never see his Madellaine again._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> alrighty, so for those of you who skipped the beginning due to its graphic nature, I will explain briefly in some gentle words what happened.
> 
> when madellaine was three, her sister Ethel was murdered and she was injured. because of this, her father sent her to a French convent, not knowing that he'd never see her again. 
> 
> more about madellaine's escape of said convent and of sarousch later, i promise! and oh, the next chapter will contain more about the reveal of her heritage. thanks for reading! sorry if this was a tad short XP


	4. Chapter Four

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ok, I gotta know for anyone reading this PLS answer  
> have you seen joseph: king of dreams or am I the only one in this fandom?  
> it's my favorite movie, the hunchback of notre dame is a CLOSE second but ohmygosh, joseph is literally my baby  
> *cricket noises*  
> nobody?  
> oh, okay. enjoy the chapter! X)

"...we meet again at last."

Madellaine must have forgotten to think, to respond, because the several seconds she prevailed as silent as the crickets at early morn drew on way longer than was necessary. Was this a scheme to leave her as tactless as possible so that they may subdue her? The pounding, throbbing drum playing her heartstrings like an aggravated dulcimer was only added onto when the man before her bowed low, gently taking her calloused hand into his, kissing it quite passionately. She let out a strangled grunt from her throat, though it came out more like a pitiful squeak as she allowed him to rise. She seemed to be unaware that his lips were not against her hand any longer, because it twitched slightly. Madellaine grabbed onto her finger and began to trace the crescent moon of her nail with the pad of her middle digit, an overstimulated habit, a self-pacifying gesture that didn't seem to be working. She nearly cut into her flesh with her fingernail when yet another woman came up the steps, coming to join the rest.

"If you came up here to harm me, just do it..." she uttered, trying to enunciate her words confidently, but falling flat when her throat cracked. 

"Why would we harm our only princess?" one of the maidens asked, the strawberry blonde Sector 2 girl. Her name was Tilde and she was quite young, perhaps nineteen in age, and her voice surely showed it. She had fairly tan skin, though it had a warm, sun-kissed glow to it, not needing the sun to shine.

The sector 4 girl, Hildegard, attended to the ground, her face shrouded in her locks of occultism. She stayed as silent as the moon, creamy skin and dusky hair, and her sunken-in eyes showed that she had not eaten in days. While the others ate dried meats and drank from jugs of wine, she was fitted with only a piece of stale bread for the journey. Jehan had told the girls that they were to bring their own nourishment, and when Hildegard dared to open her mouth and beg for even a bite more to eat, he would smack her and tell her that he would not waste his goods on a ' _quatre_.'

The older woman, Agathe, presumably the richest telling by her luxurious gown and round, well-fed body, radiated a sense of self-importance that Madellaine understood from her time with Sarousch. She had platinum blonde hair, sterling eyes that could be mistaken for coins, and a certain fearlessness in her stride that Madellaine had never seen before. While Tilde gazed around in rapture at the rows upon rows of lustrous, resplendent bells, Agathe modestly bowed ceremoniously before her future queen, Hildegard following suit as to not be punished. 

"I don't understand..." Madellaine uttered, taking a swift step back, nearly tripping over the stray carving of her husband on the floor. It had been banished to the ground presumably by Djali, Esmeralda's closest animal confidant, who wasn't always so careful when bouncing about the wooden floorboards of the bell tower. 

"We've come to rescue you," came Hildegard's chilling, meek voice. It was polite and reserved, but... just... _eerie_. Madellaine felt as if she had been hexed just by having heard this woman's whispy, bated tone. 

"R-Rescue me?" was this about Quasimodo? Were they presuming that she was in danger because she lived among him? She furrowed her brow, ready to defend herself and her husband, but Agathe stepped forward. 

"You... don't know?"

"K-Know w-what? You're making no sense..."

The maidens all looked among one another, even Hildegard looked slightly bewildered. 

"They..." Agathe took a long, forlorn breath, "They never told you?"

"Who never told me what...?"

The woman bit her lip for a moment and then retrieved the flier stashed away in Jehan's precious satchel, the one made for him by Claude. She unfolded the champagne paper and presented it to the unknowing dauphine.

Madellaine cringed when she caught sight of her former master, Sarousch, but when she saw herself beside him, she felt as if she had been slapped in the face. Literally and figuratively... she closed her eyes for a moment, forgetting what was going on, only feeling the sting in her flesh when she had flubbed a line on stage or failed to show up. She remembered the feeling of the man sneaking into her trailer at night, losing her innocence each time the door creaked open, being beaten into a miserable stupor when she had shared with him said... _consequences_ of his nightly visits. Madellaine moved a hand to her stomach temporarily before going back to digging into her own flesh. She hadn't realized that she had indeed carved into the tip of her finger with the relentless scratching of her nail, because a hot runnel of blood flowed from the minor injury. She took to concealing it under her sleeve.

"Is this you?"

"Yes..."

"Do you...remember your parents?"

Madellaine didn't understand what in the hell was going on, so she began trembling, especially at the recollection of the man who had abused her. She figured, for her sanity and perhaps theirs, to just play along with whatever was befalling her.

"N-No..."

"Your sister, Ethel?"

Madellaine's glacial eyes shot open as wide as they would go, a squeak of a gasp bequeathing a sensation that sent her shakily lurching backward. She attempted to clutch a chair, the bedpost, something for stability but instead slipped right onto the hardwood floors. 

_"ETHEL!"_

She felt as if she had been shot through the breast with an arrow, desperately clutching her chartreuse garment as to not faint, fall into oblivion, nearly die there in the life she had built with her husband. Her already pale face was rendered ashen with terror, wondering WHERE they had heard that name. Where had they gotten that paper, why on Earth they were bowing to her as if she were some deity, rendering her speechless when they spoke her title? She had never been the most stalwart of people when it came to constraining her fears, but she was being fired something every two seconds that left her reeling into hysteria. Madellaine felt as if she were to be sick.

"Do you remember the convent...?" Agathe tried, inching forward, not understanding that she was on the verge of passing out.

"How do you know all of this..?" Madellaine panted, " _Why?"_

"Because, Madellaine," Jehan stepped forward to the girl attempting to make a meager endeavor to stand, "You are the daughter of Sadie and Adelaide, former king and queen of Corinthia. You are our princess."

Before her brain had time to process any bit of this, everything hushed to black as her clammy hands slipped again and sent her tumbling onto the splintery wood below. 

* * *

"Esmeralda!"

The Romani woman let out a high pitch cry of shock, wisps of her curly hair prying free of her silk hair tie as she whipped her head to find the source of such a high pitched wail. Before she could get his name out, he spoke again.

"M-Madellaine! She- _she's_...!"

"Quasi, what's wrong? What happened?"

"She's missing!"

"What do you mean, missing?!"

Quasi tried to steady his shaky breath, "I-I went to the market but when I came back, she was gone! I think she was taken!"

Esmeralda despairingly started flying her exotic sea-green eyes around the room, around Quasi's trembling form, before she noticed something glimmering on Quasimodo's dark cloak. She reached her tanned hand out instantly, plucking out of the worn woolen seams of the fabric a strand of spun gold. Madellaine's hair. With no time to lose, she closed her eyes, pressing the frayed strand in her earnest, silky hands. Quasi tried to ask what she was doing, but he was restrained from an opportunity when she spoke some words in a tongue he only vaguely remembered from Claude's bitter pedagogy of gypsy culture. 

Next, she emitted all of the tension in her body in one pacifying breath, converging all of her natural-born energy into her friend. Congregating the strand of hair, Madellaine's very essence with her innermost abilities, she entered a lucid, dream-like state, almost like a vision to bestow upon the gypsy girl where her friend could possibly be. Low and behold, she was able to make out the smoky, disheveled view of her amongst a man. She only got the smallest of glances because of how little of the woman's life was between her palms. Releasing herself from her spell, she opened her eyes.

"She's... with someone... she doesn't seem to be restrained in any way."

"With whom?"

"A-A man..."

Quasi's blood clotted together into a fiery churned stew of jealousy. The most sordid of images were bestowed among the worst part of his conscious, hoping to God that he hadn't lost her heart.

"D-Doing what...?"

"T-Talking..." her mind was still unintelligible and misty after releasing so much energy, "We must find out where they've gone."

"What about Pheobus?"

"He isn't here," she stood up, staggering slightly, but Quasi overtook her elbows, easing her back down.

"You can't go out like this... you'll fall and hurt yourself."

"B-But I think I know where she is..."

"Esme... please, stay and rest. Where is she?"

"She's..." she took a deep breath, "Sitting by the Seine..."

* * *

"So..." Madellaine's fingertips warily grazed along the surface of the portrait of her family, her family before the tragedy. She was cautious with the oil paint, not to blemish or smear any crevice of the canvas so that she may observe their faces as unquestionably as possible, "This... is my family...?"

"Your mother, Sadie," came Jehan's bleary, obviously tired voice, "Your father, Adelaide. And your sister..."

_"ETHEL!"_

"Ethel?"

"Yes," Jehan nodded.

"Wh..." she blinked very leisurely, taking in the appearances of her kin. Madellaine flickered at her family, deep within her ocean's eyes, and she swore she could see them flicker back with twice the intensity, "What... happened?"

Jehan was almost... fascinated in a way that the girl had no recollection of her childhood. He hadn't considered Madellaine _wouldn't_ have been shown the reason she had been sequestered from them, why she never returned. There were questions for both sides to give answers to, Madellaine having more innumerable questions than the undulations in the river she was seated mere feet from. It was almost humorous that this woman was mere _months_ away from her coronation and she didn't even remember a damn thing concerning what she would be going back to. Nevertheless, Jehan was going to have to be patient. Claude had _claimed_ to be patient but considering how tirelessly he worked to have Esmeralda vanquished with the flames of the afterworld, or the linen of his sheets, nobody would take such a claim to be serious. 

He motioned to her upper arm, which Madellaine seized nervously.

"May I?" he asked her.

She gestured in agreement, though falteringly, and he smoothly lifted her sleeve to reveal the old scar, slices of skin messily stitched over the traumatized domain. She wondered how on _Earth_ this newfangled man could possibly ever _know_ about this. 

"You got this handsome little scar when you were three," he said matter-of-factly, having retained the date as if it had befallen just yesterday, "There was an attack upon the castle by some... eh... male supremacists who wanted your mother off of the throne. They killed your sister and I suppose you must have attempted to intervene because you were hurt as well."

"Was that why they sent me to the convent?"

"Correct," he nodded, "To keep their heir safe."

"Why was I not told about any of this?" she snapped, leaving a very small interstice between their dilated pupils, "Why didn't they bring me back?"

"Why did you leave the convent?" he rebutted, and she was practically in incredulity at how _unfair_ this situation was. 

"Sister Lucy was dead! I couldn't stay there any longer, not for another second..." she shuddered at the compound of the breeze and the reminiscence of the death of her mother figure. 

"And..." he softly grazed his chin with his fingers, "You had no way of knowing you were the future queen?"

 _"No!"_ she was bordering the brink of tears, lip quivering, "How could they have just taken away my family, my life? What harm would there have been if they just... told me..."

"I suppose they didn't want you to feel more special than the other children at the convent," he mused, "Either that, or they wanted this outcome to happen. For you to live just a safe and normal life after what had happened to you. Instead of running the risks of you being found and killed alongside your sister."

She could no longer battle with herself to contain her sentiments, and rivulets of tears began to roll from her reddened cheeks. 

"There, there..." Jehan tried to feign even the scantiest bit of commiseration.

"And now my parents really are..."

"Dead," he said, almost too promptly, "Yes... you are the future of your kingdom..." 

He impressed a hand into hers, seizing the crisp grass in a balled-up fist, and she allowed it, even though she didn't understand why he was doing this.

"What am I going to do...?" she whimpered, "How am I going to tell Quasi...?"

"Maybe you don't have to," he smirked, essaying a calm demeanor.

"What?" her voice was as frail as her very bones.

"We could... always just go together?" he suggested, his rich, lustrous voice underplaying the sinister character of the proposal. 

"What?" she repeated, "No... I-I'm sorry, but I'm not leaving French soil until my husband is okay with it."

"You don't really have much of an option, mademoiselle. You will leave."

She snatched her hand from his grip, "N-No... no, I don't want this."

"Don't you want to make your parents proud, your majesty?"

The Scotswoman became increasingly uncomfortable with each word that emerged from his lips, lips that she swore were getting closer and closer to her. She shifted awkwardly, ripping a sliver of grass from the roots of the heart of Paris and fiddling with the thing to ease her racing cognizance. This was too much. _Too_ much.

"I'm sorry, monsieur but... I am a girl, not a queen. I may have the blood of my parents but I have the heart of a wife, and I would never force the man I love to become my consort. I'm not worthy of running a kingdom. I can't even remember this place..."

"Corinthia."

"Whatever, I..." she stood up rather quickly, realizing that she had just been slightly rude, "This has been... wonderful, a-and I thank you for the portraits and the information, but-"

"Madellaine?"

 _Quasimodo..._ she wanted to rush to her bedroom and just scream, screech at the peak of her lungs for all of Paris to listen to her frustration. This was way too much for one night, it had to just be another bad dream. _How did Quasi even find me?_ she asked herself frantically.

"Quasi..."

Before even bothering to ask any questions, he threw his powerful arms around her, holding her tightly bound to his heartbeat so that she may hear just how frantic he was trying to find her. She let out almost a startled pant that had been ensnared in her lungs. How was she supposed to tell him? How? This couldn't possibly end well...

"Oh, thank goodness you're alright!" he cried, cupping her face with his hands, "What happened, are you hurt? Did this man hurt you?"

"I...I.."

"Oh, I was so worried, my love..." he breathed, not really giving the dizzied princess time to respond, "I was so scared! What's going on, why did you leave?"

The atmosphere began to whirl for the second time that day, and her earshot fluctuated in and out of focus as Quasi shook her as mildly as he could manage. Jehan had already slipped beyond the married couple, far down the river Seine, not wanting to run the likelihood of being recognized by his brother's former son. 

_Not his son, more rather a trial that Claude didn't deserve to bear. Even after what he had done to Bellamy and I._

"Quasi..." she meekly let out, falling into his chest, "I think I'm going to be sick..." 

* * *

Madellaine had admittedly gotten _very_ sick. Fortunately, her organs were considerate enough to allow her to get to the bell tower before spitting up, the outpour of the bile being considerably more profound than she would have foreseen. Quasi was there, as confused as he was, to comfort his wife as gushes of the residues of her light breakfast came out like hot lava. Madellaine couldn't stand when she got sick like this, neither could he... it twisted his heartstrings into knots when he had to bear witness to the tear-inducing cries of her consternation bordering on misery. He thumbed away the tears tumbling from her aching eyes once she had stained the inside of the waste bin. 

"Sweetheart..." he whispered, trying to be as benign as he could, "Are you alright...? What did that man say to you?"

She groaned, ready to upchuck her very intestines, and Quasimodo got the hint that she was not in the proper mindset to even apprehend his words. He laid her down among the sheets and kissed the crown of her forehead, wiping the last of her tears away. Her eyes fluttered shut as they had yearned to for hours and she fell asleep before he got the chance to tell her how much he loved her.

All Quasimodo knew was that if he ever came across the man that had done this to her, whatever he may have done, he would snap him in half like a twig.

* * *

"DAMN IT!" Jehan screamed, "That stupid MUTT! Now I have to be all hot and _bothered! That bastard! Damn it, damn it, damn it, **DAMN IT!" (** ~~kakegurui fans wya)~~_

"My lord, you must calm yourself!" Agathe cried, clutching the man's shaking shoulders. He captured her wrists and drove her to the carpet. 

"Get out, Agathe!" he bellowed, "That bitch is going to come back! And she is going to be my wife whether she likes it or not!"

"My lord..." the woman recomposed herself rather impressively, "She is married already. To the bell ringer, Quasimo-"

"I KNOW HIS NAME!" Jehan roared, "I've known every instant of his _pointless_ life!"

"Sir, your blood pressure..." 

"Get out! OUT!" he screamed, seizing a vase laying irregular on the caravan floor and throwing it in her direction, his seething hatred erupting in an inferno of hellfire. She left as quickly as her laced black boots would carry her as he launched yet another costly glass onto the ruthless ground. Hellfire, wasting his soul so intensely that it could dissolve the glaciers with a snap of his fingers. 

"I'll _KILL HIM!"_

He swore to himself that night that he would be the one to avenge Claude. He would be the one to kill that monster, that mistake once and for all. Then he could finally make him satisfied and receive the throne, govern the kingdom just like they had always planned as small lads. 

Or... better yet...

Take his wife and make him _suffer_...

* * *


	5. Chapter Five

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I like to make all of my characters three dimensional. What I loved so much about Claude were his ultimate faults. He wasn't evil to be evil, he was evil in the name of God. Even though I am a devoted Christian, I can agree that there are so many Frollos out there. I've sort of tried to put myself into each character so I can connect to them even just a little bit. Even Jehan is a character of my own. Each character I write always has an aspect of myself. I have Madellaine's gentleness and trauma, Quasi's protective nature and self-doubt, Jehan's issues with forgiveness, Hildegard's mystery, Bellamy's sass, Tilde's wonder, etc.  
> With that being said, I usually turn fanfiction into original fiction with the same names and basic info, even without realizing it lmao! I wonder if others do the same.

"Agathe..."

"Yes, my lord?"

Jehan took his hands and he slicked his hair back, out of his eyes, in a posthaste fashion. His fits of hellfire when things went awry often didn't befit his truly eerily calm demeanor. When he understood that the girl he intended to marry didn't want anything to do with him or the sovereignty of being queen, it sunk in just how difficult this task would be. Not only would he have to be triumphant in murdering the hunchback, that _traitor_ who destroyed his brother, but he would have to convince Madellaine to fall in love with him and her kingdom. Headstrong girl...

Jehan, deep down, beneath all of his compact strata of vengeance, loved his brother. He denounced Claude for what he had done, for how he had bequeathed all of his responsibility to him, but if he hadn't cared for Claude, why would it have stirred such a yearning to be by his side so dearly? He admittedly wept at night over Claude, entombed beneath a lush black marbled sky, his tears salted with God's variegated, cosmic realms of stars. Luminous, heavenly bodies whispered his brother's words to him, though it must have been wishful thinking. What Claude had done to his youngest brother had not been an imputation on what he had ever meant to him. It had been out of years of his own insecurities and misgivings on his bleak future. Jehan was docile and brave and innocent and Claude only saw in the young man what Jehan must have seen in him when he betrayed him. In Claude's misplaced entitlement, he gave Jehan only passive-aggressive rage in their final years together. But Jehan could not ignore all of the goodwill his brother had presented his life.

But now he was gone. He could never get any of those years back.

Why would God punish Claude for just bearing out His desires? Would he meet the same fortune if he tripped God's wirework trap, just like his brother? 

"I apologize..." he took a deep breath, "For the way I behaved last night. Every time I see that monster's face, I cannot control myself. I almost did not want to believe it to be true, that our queen married a demon. But I have prayed and God willing, she will marry me."

"All is forgiven," she bowed her head curtly, not prying out of reverence and revulsion for what would pass if she did dare overstep her bounds.

"Will you do something for me?" he asked, though they both knew it was not a request.

"What is it?"

He turned his head slowly to face her, "Check on the princess for me. Let me know when there's an opportunity for us to go back up there."

* * *

Morning broke quicker than Quasimodo had expected. Being undone from his formless dream felt like he had been torn in two like cheap linen. He had little time to mull over the exhaustion still heavily slathered in his voice, though, when he felt the sheer heat radiating off of his wife's body.

The poor woman had sweat so profoundly in her slumber that she was nearly soaked as if she had been submerged in boiling water. He pivoted onto his side, drawing a yawn as he stretched his unused muscles, and pressed a cold hand to her forehead that was as ruddy as the flames that had taken away the life of his father-figure. Not only was her porcelain skin the tint of Claude's hellfire, but it also was akin to the force of its temperature as well. She was running a fever.

His wife got ill from time to time, as did he. They both acceded to malady they vowed to tend to on their wedding day. But something must have provoked this, whatever that man had done to her made her this way. She was shrouded in more inscrutability than he could bear, and he wished she would tell him what was troubling her. It was the penultimate of concerns he had, though. He knew that cooling her body down would at least take away a small portion of his worry. It was hard waking up in the morning without the confluence of their tender affection.

Weeks of her distress had left him nearly despondent. His poor wife... He just wanted to formulate an interpretation of what he could do to bring her back to normal. 

"Oh, Madellaine..." he sighed, wringing out a cold, wet cloth and pressing it to her forehead. She moaned a little in her sleep, her small body leaving ripples in the fabric when a small rivulet of water dripped from her brow to her cheek. 

"Quasi..."

"I'm here, darling..." he essayed a smile, "What do you need?"

"Mmh..." she let out a soft, almost dainty huff, that would have made Quasi swoon with affection if she wasn't aching, "I'd kiss you, but... I feel awful..."

"I know, sweetheart," he stroked her glistening, resplendent locks with his slightly sodden fingers. It was as if she was abducted by a phantom of unbroken ailments. 

"I'm-"

Quasi knew right away she was about to apologize, and he would have none of that. He smoothed a finger along her lips, hushing her musical, elegant femme-like voice.

"Shh shh..." he replied, resisting everything he could to press his lips into her chapped, cherry tinted ones. 

Looking into his eyes was like swallowing a stone. If fire could burn in the depths of the Mediterranian, French love in all the spun laces of blazing cobalt majesty, it would not even hold a candle to the eyes of her husband. She had vowed to maintain all trust between her and him, and yet the more words she had to say to him, the more unmanageable it was to pronounce the angles of her predicament. Telling him that he had wed into a royal family knowing his insecurities was like attempting to speak a foreign tongue. She knew what she had to say, she just couldn't translate the urgency into her voice. It felt as if the words she needed to say were _forbidden_. 

His trusting, cool voice did not quench her guilt over keeping such news from him. Oh, he would surely be confounded. What if... what if he wanted to terminate his marriage with her over this? 

She then slid her gaze towards her wedding ring. She would nevermore view her hand the same again if this cost her her matrimony. Quasi may as well just take an icepick to her heart. 

"Quasimodo..." her voice wavered uncertainly.

"What is it?"

She hiccupped, ready to weep, "I... would you ever leave me?"

"What?" he looked like his wife had smacked him across his deformed face, "Of course not. My life is _nothing_ without you, Madellaine. Why would you think such a thing?"

The lump in her throat, the stone she had swallowed when she had peered into his loving eyes, all of it erupted into a crescendo of watery demured bewailings. The very chance that she could lose him, lose her only reason to go on after her miserable life, was enough to make her drop dead of a widowmaker on the very spot. Her lamenting outpour and panic mixed with her ailments overtook her. How could she say it? How?

"Darling...!" he squeaked in surprise, "What is the matter? What has been going on that you aren't telling me?"

"I...!" she had no idea how to tell him, "I don't know how to tell you..."

"You can tell me anything, love," he affirmed, chiding her in a manner that would not send another fit of slicked, murky tears to slide down her sizzling cheeks. Madellaine wrapped her arms around herself, working up the courage to say it, racing the sickness welling up her esophagus. Though there was a twinge of doubt burrowing in the furthest snares of his mind, that she was confessing to... well, something not so chaste that had something to do with that man she had spoken with.

"I..." she took a deep breath, chilling the air as her stress came out in beads of sweat, "I... I found.. my..."

He waited patiently for her to continue, rubbing her back, offering any small amount of comfort he may bring to this truly broken woman. 

"My family, Quasi..."

Though he was greatly relieved for any possibility for Madellaine's promiscuity outside of wedlock, ~~_**(K HOWARD IS HERE)**_~~ , another plethora of questions rose.

_Was that... all? Shouldn't she be rejoicing?_

"That's... that's a good thing, no?"

Then a more morbid thought dug its talons into his insecurity. Her family. Her _parents_. Looking upon his _face_. Oh good Lord... was she crying from shame? Shame that she had married someone who had barely anything to offer her?

"No, Quasi, you don't understand..." she swallowed what she thought to be a bubble of air desperately trying to wriggle its way up her throat, but no, the sour residue along her pharynx suggested that she had just narrowly dodged spitting up another round of her meager nourishment.

He cocked his head to the side, hands still entwined in her slightly unwashed hair, only having a slender rinse whilst caught in the rain when Quasi practically carried her back to their humble bell tower. To trade this sanctuary for a palace might have sounded like a golden opportunity, a holy _grail_ for anyone else she had ever known, but what was luxury compared to the life she and Quasi had planted below the motherly love of the bells that sang to them each morning? Would everything change between the two? Would he not... _want_ her anymore?

"My parents were..." _ugh, just get on with it, foolish girl!_ she chastised herself inwardly. To further her longing for him to believe her, she extracted out the one-of-a-kind portraits of her long-since passed family and spread them out across their bedsheets. He nictitated. And then... with trembling, unreliable hands, she hoisted out of her pack a lustrous diamond tiara as if it weighed more than the bells of Notre Dame. No, it carried the weight, the _responsibility_ of the kingdom she fretted she had no choice to rule. A flicker of anxiety left Notre Dame's couple's hearts partaking in a mutual tangibility, one that was not _love_ this time.

"My parents... were Sadie and Adelaide."

Quasi truly wanted to scoff, not out of impatience, but out of astounded skepticism. Of course, Frollo had mentioned the king and queen of an offland Scottish realm, most likely due to his former master's shock that they had died so youthfully. It went to show how tribulation and strife could quite literally be the demise of you, even someone as mighty as a king. Quasimodo was well educated in such matters due to his prying of Frollo to ken more of what was going on outside the ramparts of his magnificent prison. He couldn't stand to have such a modest window of the world he was a part of.

Frollo had only mentioned the names of their two infamous daughters once. Quasi vaguely retained one name, Ethel, but all of his life the second one hadn't managed to gain retention in his damaged brain. But as soon as those words finally managed to pry free of his wife's lips, he spontaneously manifested the recollection of the second. Years of building a life with Madelliane came tumbling down in seconds as soon as he knew exactly what was going on.

Madellaine. Princess Madellaine. _Princess_ Madellaine.

Good _Lord_. Good _LORD!_ His wife was a _princess!_ He had married into a _royal_ family!

He was a prince. A _prince_.

And if her parents were no more... he would be... she would be... _they_ would be...

_King and Queen._

_He could almost hear Claude laughing at his face._

_"No..."_ he whispered.

Madellaine's eyes clouded with the smoke of the unknown, the undivided consternation in his voice rendering her dolorous. She felt bilious, and she knew as soon as his face was stripped of all color that he was about to be sick as well.

"How..." he plunged over any endeavor at enunciating any syllable, trying so severely not to fall backward, "How can this be...?"

"I don't know... I..." her voice was strained and washed out from a night's worth of vomiting everything she had ever eaten, "I...!"

King... Him? _King?!_

"What..." he nearly fainted, but jolted at the feeling of plunging into the abyss and leaving Madellaine alone, "What does this mean? Madellaine?"

"They want me..." her breast ripped with dry sobs, "They want me to be _queen_."

As averse as his will was to losing consciousness, Quasimodo's mind was no match for his heart, which skipped several beats in the worst way. The world whirled around him as he brushed his auburn hair from his spinning vision before fainting and collapsing on the floor.

It was a miracle that his wife didn't join him.

* * *

"Nggh! Quasi...!" 

Most nights, Madellaine would run her fingertips alongside Quasimodo's well-toned muscles, cherishing every dip, every angle of his strong arms around her. But when trying to hoist his unconscious body upon their bed, she resented him for being so heavily strong. She barely used what little muscle she had, her life was Quasi and he rarely left the bell tower as it was. She had nothing to live for but Quasi, and he had nothing to live for but Madellaine. 

How comical would it be for someone to see this display without proper context? Her trying to drag her husband's unresponsive body would seem to any outsider like a domestic murder case. She scolded herself internally for such a thing even being at the forefront of her mind and tore her focus back onto getting him on the godforsaken _bed_.

Good Lord _above_ he was heavy! Or... was it just her being so debilitated from not eating?

Perhaps, if she gathered all of her strength and attempted to scoop the man up bridal style (much like he had done with her on their wedding day), she could use the strength built up in her legs from climbing that long, winding stairwell every day to get him up. 

"I love you, Quasi, but this would be so much easier if you'd just wake up...!" she squeaked, gently fixing him back down for a moment to catch her breath. 

She never imagined in a million years when they sealed their love with a kiss on the day they wedded that they would ever be in such a thick jam. Ever. It almost made her laugh among her panting trials to get a breath into her lungs worked overdrive. 

The princess had thought the nightmares had been too much for her to bear, but the barbed briar rubbing up against her psyche and swirling over her skin was enough to give her heart out. Oh, _speaking_ of which...

"Alright, Quasi," she huffed, leaning back down, the bones in her spine crackling as she cupped the underneath of his knees and waist, taking a deep breath of luck before fastening every drop of her might into her husband, exerting her to the very core as she heaved. It took a couplet of beatings in her heart to finally get the taller man to waist level, but she did it. Now all she had to do was trust her legs not to give out so that she could tend to him and make sure he hadn't hurt himself.

As soon as his body met the plush texture of their goose-feather bed, she let out a sigh, no, more like a grunt of relief, and flopped beside him. Oh, dearest Quasi... what was she going to do?

Perhaps the process had helped distract herself from what she had _done_ to him. She just couldn't bear from keeping such a secret from him, whether she wanted to be queen or not. Surely... surely she did have a _choice_ to stay in Paris with the man she loved? She was royalty, after all, and the kingdom had survived without her this long...

"I'm sorry, Quasi..." she breathed, stroking his cheek. How he shaved so precisely she would never know, "I love you... we'll find a way around this..." 

Tears punctured her eyes as she was wracked with yet another dry sob, curling up beside him, wanting the feel of his arm around her more than ever.

"Good Lord above, help us..." she whispered.

_~~(ok why did I laugh so hard imagining this scene)~~ _

* * *

By the time Quasi had come to his senses, his wife had succumbed to the grainy recesses of slumber, and it almost felt like a nightmare as he woke up with her in his arms. She was desperately gripping his dark bottle-green tunic as always. It felt like he had risen from one of the gravest, yet most lifelike dreams of his life. A very bizarre one at that. But the glimmer of hope he had that it hadn't been real was now transformed into the glimmer of his wife's tiara.

His... wife... who was a _princess_.

"Alright, Lord," he whispered rather harshly, "This is the thanks my wife and I get for dedicating our lives to You?"

He got up and went over to the basin of water near where the couple bathed and rubbed the sleep from his eyes. Back pain was a recurring trend throughout his difficult life, but never before had his spine literally threatened to split in two like rain-saturated bark in such a manner as this. As his face met the mirror above the basin he gripped his entire weight onto, he couldn't help but picture such features in a portrait, standing beside his beautiful wife. 

Deep down he knew his wife was just as afflicted about this revelation as he was. But he wasn't blessed with her radiant, gorgeous, nearly flawless complexion. _He was ugly._

 _"Really, Quasimodo,"_ he heard Claude whisper in his ear, yanking his marionette strings, _"Just look at you."_

Something about people pointing his flaws out baffled him. Did they think he didn't know he was ugly? Did they think the man had never seen a mirror before in his life? He had taken something his wife had said to heart one day when an unbecoming little boy had called him a changeling on the streets of Paris. Having been raised in a convent, Madellaine had no hesitation about chewing the boy out and putting him in his place. When Quasi refused to leave his bell tower for weeks, his wife coiled her arms around his torso and said to him, "If they say something to you that cannot be fixed in ten seconds, it isn't worth it to worry about."

It was true, it really was. Quasi knew that if Madellaine's hair was slightly tangled, he could tell her because she could simply brush it out. But there was nothing he could do to brush his face away. He couldn't wish on a star, couldn't beg God to allow him to wake up one day and have his troubles lifted from his shoulders (quite literally). He was stuck like this, and he had grown slightly used to it. He could handle the occasional child laughing at him, he was not a feeble-hearted man. But to have an entire kingdom looking upon his wretched features...

What was he going to do...? Could he really bring himself to leave her...?

No. No, and how _dare_ he even conceive of it! He was her _protector_ , he was going to be by her side through sickness and in health, just as he had vowed to do a year ago. 

He'd die for her, he'd walk the flames of Hell for her. 

And if she needed him by her side, damn it, he would _be there._

Because he was her protector.


	6. Chapter Six

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've changed my icon! For some reason, Itsuki radiates Madellaine's beauty. I figured it befitted the story I am writing to have someone who looked like her as my icon. Though to be fair, their personalities couldn't be more than opposite. Quasi would not have fallen in love with Madellaine if she was like Sumeragi, aha! I mean, a girl who collects fingernails from her opponents? Creepy!
> 
> I have alsoooo decided to change the name of Madellaine's kingdom. Corinthia has much more of a meaning, at least to me, and it just sounds more pleasant. 
> 
> Yes, in this, Quasi is in fact Jehan's son, but in this version, neither have an absolute clue. The Romani woman who Jehan had been with was trying to leave Paris to meet up with her lover in Corinthia, but she was caught by Frollo and killed. Jehan had no idea he had gotten her pregnant on their last liaison, and she had no way of getting a message out of Paris what with Frollo's iron fist. 
> 
> I'll be using this information for later
> 
> ANDDDD one more thing, I felt inspired to draw a sketch of this chapter. bear with me, I've based Quasimodo's general appearance from the musical and the only thing truly stagnant about the Disney one is the way his hair is. AND it's been a while since I've drawn him, sooo
> 
> https://www.deviantart.com/lolthisisstupid/art/god-save-the-queen-chapter-6-869081172?ga_submit_new=10%3A1612282633
> 
> Ah, the mad musings of yous truly, Josieann. On with the show!

Quasimodo had been surveying his reflection, swimming in his own eyes, perhaps the only sought-after feature the young man even had, looking for a scintilla's worth of bravery. His amygdala seemed to be thirsty for even a smidgeon of a break, just a rest... his head ached unlike ever before and he could scarcely think coherently.

He felt as if his muscles, his very bones had been supplanted with molten iron, pulling down every square inch of his tortured body. He reached a hand down, warily coaxing an inadequate flood of water into his hands. As much of an eccedentesiast the man was, his entire face was held in place by an invisible force, almost making a smile seem like scaling the most formidable mountain. He had little energy, head tucked amidst his broad shoulders, almost like a turtle would. He was peckish but his sore throat was hindered by the sway of his wife's testimony. If only he hadn't forsaken her, if only he had shooed the intruders away from their cynefin, their sanctuary. 

It didn't take longspun minutes for his wife to be drawn to the water basin beside him. The yonderly couple shifted awkwardly, neither knowing exactly what to say to one another. They spent almost too long mutually trying to scrape up even the tiniest thing to break the ice, but failed every chance they got. The marblestone azure sky was beginning to finally withdraw into umbrae, leaving it up to the evening-scarlet honeycomb abendrot to claim the heavens. Quasimodo and Madellaine often spoke about the most painful truths under God's deep and jeweled sky and both pondered if silence would be adequate until then. Quasi sighed, his stomach heaving into his throat and then into his appendix, and before he could turn the corner to spend some much needed alone time with his bells, Madellaine caught his eye. 

She was his nepenthe in the webbing of his damaged heart, and yet... why was she re-stringing the severed vestiges of his sorrows? He knew the young woman didn't intend to plunge him into this state, yet... just seeing her pitiful face, knowing that she was feeling what he was ten-fold... it strained his fraying heartstrings as far as they could possibly stretch. She looked like a wilted plant, needing to be watered. He wanted to comfort her, he had an appetency to just whisk her off of her feet and kiss every inch of her, and yet... they _couldn't_... not now. 

"Are..." he didn't realize he had been speaking until her dull, nearly polluted Scottish eyes met his, "Are you going to do it?"

"Do what?" she sounded... winded. Exhausted. _Lugubrious_.

Every word spoken about their situation took the might of several gods to answer. She needed time... the air between the two spouses was so viscous that she felt her supply of oxygen deplete.

"Take the throne? Move away?"

"I don't..." she whispered, "I don't know... I don't really want to talk about it right now, love."

She cantered over to him, the taciturnity ringing louder than the bells that nestled below the night sky, and kissed his cheek. 

"Madellaine..." he grabbed her wounded hand, scarred over from her unremitting habit of digging in her fingernails into her flesh, "This is serious..."

Oh, she knew that tone... her exhausted bones fought against his touch, yearning to get some fresh air.

"If you want to talk, can we please go out onto the balcony...?" she pleaded, almost as if he wouldn't accept, for whatever reason.

He hadn't said a word, instead coiling his fingers around her petite wrist and leading her outside. The wind created whipplets in the sunshine of her golden locks, and she had never felt so replenished than when she did at that moment. She sucked air into her lungs, savoring it as if it were pure honey, the sweet crystals in the drizzled rain clearing her clogged up brain. The princess needed her fevered skin to be rinsed of all burden.

"Quasi...?"

"I can't _do_ this," he said, though he hadn't meant for it to come out so abruptly, "Madellaine... Look at me. I can barely leave our home without fear. How could I face an entire kingdom?"

She looked firmly gashed by these words, as if she had taken it in a manner he did not mean.

"I know..." she whispered, ducking her head and resting her elbows on the coarse balustrade's surface, "It's not like it will be any easier for me... but I fear I have no choice."

"You must!" he insisted, "They must have someone in Corinthia to rule in your absence? Surely..."

"They want me, they're tired of waiting," she slicked back her hair sodden with serein, "I don't know what else I can do..."

"You won't... leave me, will you?"

"No!" she yelped like a kicked puppy, almost too forcefully, "No, Quasi...! I could never live a life without you. You may as well slay me down."

"Then..." he risked catching a glance at her expression, his wife's divine face, not caring that the flame-colored streaks in his hair were being tempered by the drizzle and now swirling into a muddy auburn slick tucked behind his ears. Her heart ached, he saw it in her figure, her brow knitted together as she gazed off into the unknown. The princess's hiraeth-stricken soul, though Corinthia flowed through her royal veins, felt so incongruous to the land she had been born upon. All her life she was a French girl, a peasant from Reims, and now... 

_My name is Madellaine d'Andissau, I am a princess of the kingdom of Corinthia. I am the wife of my prince-consort, Quasimodo... I was to be killed, I escaped. I joined a circus, I escaped._

All this time she yearned for her ambiguous past to clear away the smog so that she may see clearly, but... she almost preferred it the way it had been merely days prior. What you don't know can't _hurt_ you.

"You..." she took the riskiest breath, "You are always welcome to join me as my consort..."

His absolutely aghast, cutting royal blue eyes made her heart balloon in the worst way, "T-That is... if... I do go."

Fringes of eternity spiked the air with tension, a tension that shouldn't have ever been among them. The courteous manner in which they spoke was ripe to topple, Madellaine knew, just by tasting the tautness radiating off of his body. Moment by moment, tick by tick, her form began to wane. Then, she realized that she had indeed not shriveled up, but her husband had stood taller. His statuesque face, well, mostly, was troubled, timorous brows quarried towards his pensive eyes. She didn't know if he was thinking or if he was _feeling_. His expression was hard to decipher, considering he had veiled his faulty eye away from the smoldering sunset with his red hair, which was slightly tangled. 

"Is this some kind of joke...?" he muttered, "Could... there be another blonde maiden out there named Madellaine?"

"I almost wish it was..." she obscured her face in her hands, "But... the princess had gone to the exact same convent at the exact same age... the same name, same memories, however vague. I'm the lost princess."

She didn't _want_ to see his face after she said that. 

"Me...? A king, Madellaine?" he amputated the silence that neither was sure they were thankful for, "King... Quasimodo?"

"Love..." the princess reached up her hands and swept back his dripping hair, "You would make a wonderful leader."

"Not if I make my subjects disgusted," he shirked away from her gentle touch, "The last time I was king of anything, I..."

Madellaine suddenly felt as if she had been backhanded by a memory she hadn't seen, but understood, "Nobody would _ever_ mistreat a king. Not unless they wanted to see their head roll."

A maelstrom of apprehension, of a sort of helplessness, hung above their heads, threatening to prod them away from their sanctuary or... even worse, worse than any dark thought of suicide Quasimodo had ever concocted, away from each other. Quasimodo's shawl lay in sloppy ribbons at his heels, looking away from his wife, deep into the pits of a path that had no sunshine. No matter what they chose... he knew in his bones that his wife would end up in her kingdom one way or another. He had married a princess, and now he was paying the price. How could he protect her against a fate that he had no insight into?

"I wasn't brought up for this job and neither were you. We both only knew so much growing up and there's so much left out there. I thought I wanted to see it, but... All I've ever had was this sanctuary, and it will always be here no matter what. The walls of Notre Dame, my love, never change. We're at a standstill among a busy, congested crowd of small-minded harlots, and... I just... never want to feel the way I felt the day of the Festival of Fools again."

"Quasi..." she bowed her head, "I don't want to be queen. Who am I to lead an entire kingdom? But... but my home is there. I... I've always felt that I was never somewhere I was meant to be. These walls aren't my home, Quasi, you are. I just figured... maybe you'd feel the same."

"Perhaps this was a mistake..." he mumbled, so quietly that the current of the wind had to have been calm for her to hear it.

"What?" she whispered.

"I'm a monster, Madellaine, whether you think so or not," he affirmed, standing as tall as his back would allow, "And I never want to be a smear in your rule."

"Quasi, what are you saying...?"

"I just..." he sighed, long and drawn out, "I don't know anymore."

Before the force of her sorrow could make its home along her cheek, her husband was gone, and she was left to lay there, sunken to her knees on the stone that was all around her. The rain pooled every inch of parched Earth it could cover, rendering her weeping deep in the rain. Precipitation and tears washed a pitiful display on the face of Notre Dame's princess. She wept until she was ruddy in the cheeks; until the upheaval of God's vivid thunder came to make it so much worse. Its passion inflamed the heavens in blinding streaks of pure white across the wicked French sky, rain toiling as its anxious fanfare until it lashed out again, growling and booming in such a raucous crescendo of terror that Madellaine had no choice but to take refuge in their sanctuary. 

But when she called out for him, her protector, he was gone.

* * *

"Perfect..." 

As soon as Jehan heeded the boy hobbling apart from the cathedral and his wife, his opportunity finally arrived. _God_ , finally...

He paid his leave to his handmaidens, even Hildegard, who was slimming down more and more each day, and sought protection from the rain with a dark black silk cloak, one that had belonged to his older brother.

"You see that, Claude?" he smiled teasingly at the celestial bounds where he was certain his brother was nestled between, "I'm finally going to win."

* * *

Jehan had seen Quasimodo's solemn walk beyond his sanctuary, but that alone wasn't enough to tell that Madellaine was alone. The wisps of his dishwater-blonde hair bleached as the sun's rays found a reprieve from the oppression of the thunderclouds. The storm reached its bolts out across the twinkled sky, caging the people in like a warden. Jehan didn't think he had to be stuck there when he had a mission. 

And this time, he would reel her in before that wretch of a man interrupted again. Jehan really, really hated being interrupted. After calming down and letting his resolve bleed through his unbridled rage, he realized that he could get the girl to listen to what he had to say if he only had the patience. Good things come to those who wait, after all, and he was not about to make the same mistake as his older brother. Just remembering the man from so long ago, even the image of him that seemed like a desert mirage, pushed the blood in his veins forward, urging him to allow his soul to be espoused with the flow of time. He'd get her, he'd do it eventually. He just had to bide his time. 

Claude, the old courtsman from Corinthia, wanted more too quickly, and though he had gotten what he wanted until he withered grey, he still allowed his incompetence and his drive to overpower him. In the end, he allowed his choices to ruin him. Old Claude, the man who just didn't think things through. The man who had been hexed with unchaste thoughts by a woman nothing more than a temptress. Jehan would never allow himself to see Madellaine as anything more than a chess piece to stage his path to the throne.

Being king would fulfill both his and Claude's aspirations, get him a beautiful wife to carry out his carnal needs, and allow him to show Quasimodo, that traitor, the pain he made him feel ten-fold.


	7. Chapter Seven

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> https://www.deviantart.com/lolthisisstupid/art/Chapter-7-869114627
> 
> here's this chapter's sketch!

_"If you find me, my dear,_

_Bathing lush in your glow,_

_Among orchid years and_

_Through pedestals of snow_

_Love me, crave me, hurt me no more._

_Only you could cradle my love to the shore._

_Cradle my love darling, cradle it close_

_Cradle my love to the dark, zephyr coast._

_Tendrils of past have coiled my core_

_Together, forever until we're no more_

_Eastern stars polishing our blind wild senses_

_Our future, our deity, our star-crossed offenses,_

_Love me, crave me, hurt me no more._

_Only you could cradle my love to the shore._

_Cradle my love darling, cradle it close_

_Cradle my love to the dark, zephyr coast._

_I know you have found it,_

_The womb of the crescent,_

_Your luster, your wit,_

_Your heart, evanescent._

_I've bled out my hot tears,_

_I've pictured your face,_

_You've ten thousand years now,_

_To reach me posthaste._

_Love me, crave me, hurt me no more._

_Only you could cradle my love to the shore._

_Cradle my love darling, cradle it close_

_Cradle my love to the dark, zephyr coast."_

Every night, long after the atmosphere initiated its celestial amber leisure, Madellaine would hold her husband close to her, intimately singing strings of song into his ears. His little songbird, Madellaine, never failed to lax his overused muscles and aching bones. Oftentimes, her voice was the only thing that could allow his overstimulated hypothalamus to shut down at last. He'd kiss her goodnight, arms shielding her from the speckles of whatever troubles had come their way, and if the stars aligned, they'd nestle themselves beneath their intimate sheets of passion and allowed whatever pass of touch that came their way. They relished every moment, every second they could truly be their most vulnerable selves, feeling as if those nubivagant hours dissipated any drop of their strife (Madellaine oftentimes wondered why she wasn't with child yet, truly, though they were in no rush.) No matter what, she'd always sing to him, and he'd always be there to hear the resonation of her melodies among the bells.

But one night, Madellaine had nobody to sing to but herself.

It reminded her of cruder, yet simpler times in the convent, where she had learned more melodies from Sister Clemensia than many would in a lifetime. She would sing among her peers, curled below a chandelier of stars, and they'd sing to their heart's content. Their faces, obscured and worn from her memory, would make her feel as if she wasn't as alone as she truly was. 

But her song, riddled with heaved, dry sobs, was uninterrupted, and she knew exactly why. She had pushed Quasi too far, expected way too much of him. But she still wished that maybe... maybe she could convince him to help her make her parents proud. But if he didn't want a princess for a wife, she also understood... How could he have known she was royal when even she didn't?

Spindled twine tugged at her lungs as she attempted to take another breath in. She held her lavish tiara in her scarred hands, trying to find something else to do rather than bite her fingernails in worry. She knew Quasi was coming back but she wanted to talk things over with him as soon as she could. 

She didn't _want_ this. She almost wished it had been her that was killed instead of her sister.

"Hey..." 

At the first shiver of the man's tone, Madellaine had hoped above all else that it was Quasimodo. But when she craned her head, so quickly that she almost broke her slender neck, she saw the man who had attempted to seduce her by the river Seine. 

"Jehan...?" she whispered, voice still saturated with her grief.

"Lovely song, your majesty," he said, not really asking permission before sitting beside her on her bed, "I've heard it before."

She sniffed and dried her nose with her sleeve, "Y-You have?"

"Yes... my, ah..." he took an abysmal breath through his nose, suppressing _her_ name so that he may not begin to weep in front of the woman he intended to wed, "A certain someone used to sing it to me."

"What... what are you doing here?"

Jehan leaned down and scooped the metal tiara in his freezing cold hands, setting it in her lap, "I'd like to hear your decision if it isn't too soon. I'm expected back home soon."

"My... decision?" she thought about Quasi almost on impulse, about his downtrod body language the last she saw him, and then, even direr, if he retreated back to the tower and saw her with another man in their bed, "I..."

"I can see you need more time," he offered even the slightest bit of solace as he thumbed one of her stray tears away, stunned when the girl didn't scoot away, "That's fine. But I'm camped near Notre Dame always awaiting your response. No rush, no pressure."

"Have you-" she hiccupped, "Seen my husband?"

"No," Jehan had to paste a facade air of concern, though he wanted to smile. Had he _deserted_ her during such a crucial moment? How _perfect_... "Why?"

Madellaine stood up promptly, brushing the fringes of sawdust from her husband's favorite gown, favorite claret hue amidst her delicate, ornate beauty. 

"No reason," she lied. At least they were on equal grounds for truthful merit at that point, well, at least that's what Jehan thought. 

"Oh, where are my manners, my princess?" he shook his head, chiding his lackluster aura even internally, "I shouldn't sit here, upon your bed, without your permission."

"Don't worry about it, monsieur," she pivoted her head to look at this man, one of her subjects, as though his presence offered her the lovechild between comfort and agitation. She was grateful for his words of candor, but the last thing she desired as the topcoat for the fruits of her labors upon her husband was to have him discover that she had another man up in their tower. The only sounds between the two were the sounds of their shoes scuffing the freshly polished floorboards and their quick nictation. And... perhaps... the sounds of gargoyle whispering that she had only heard once at the peak of her insanity among Sarousch's tyranny. 

Sometimes, when her husband had tough and grueling days with pain, emotional or physical, she would hear him talking to things that weren't there. She had actually managed to forget over time that she, too, had her own hallucinations as a girl, but as a married woman, as long as she had Quasi by her side to listen to her birdsong, her sanity no longer fluctuated. 

She feared she'd lose herself forever if she didn't find herself a way out of this dilemma. One more enigma and she'd snap like the feeble string holding together her worn, tousled cloak.

"Shall I take my leave, your majesty?" 

She nodded her head so daintily that Jehan may not have intercepted it if he wasn't paying close attention. Madellaine felt like she couldn't breathe; like her ribs had punctured the film of her lungs filled with molten lava. 

Before she knew it, she was alone. Alone again. And there was nothing to stop her from falling to her calloused knees and digging her fingernails into her forearm. She needed a reprieve, a spot of calm after the turmoil. Her brain could only soak up so much, could only weep so many parched tears...

A sick sort of quietude came once she felt the droplets of gore soak up underneath her fingernails. She sank her nails into her flesh like a venomous snake's fangs hungry for ichor that her husband would scold her for entreating from her already weak body. She devoured the skin, as far as she could, feeling absolutely nothing but repose as long as she shed blood. Quasi would see the crescent moon-shaped scars once he returned but... she didn't care. All her life she had been taken prisoner, upheld by someone else's jurisdictions, nothing but a game piece in someone else's vouch for success. Quasi understood this better than anyone, but without him, she had nobody.

So if he would leave her like this, call their marriage a mistake, then... she'd rule. She'd rule no matter if he came with her or if he preferred his unhealthy seclusion over his own wife who he had pledged to protect. Her parents were patrolling her from their nest in God's court, her subjects anticipated her long-overdue rise, and she belatedly had the home she had always yearned for merely an ocean's yonder northeast.

She'd be queen, but always a queen in someone else's court.

* * *

"Mads?" 

The round voice of the bell ringer pervaded the vacated chamber with a twinge of desperation.

"Madellaine...?"

He surmised that she was there, for Quasimodo could hear her breathing.

"Quasi...?" she almost hadn't wanted to speak at all. It took too much energy...

His footsteps became louder and louder as her hearing faded back into relevance. Even though she couldn't see his face, she was pretty sure she knew what it was doing. 

"Mads, I..."

She turned around to face the man she had married, whose face donned the exact same contortions and guilt she thought it would. She could tell by the way his footsteps lightly treaded along their tower that he had come to apologize, not draw out the fight.

"Mads?" she inquired, not exactly looking him in the eyes.

"I..." he faltered, contorting his hands, "Thought the name suited you."

No matter how tense the atmosphere settled to thicken, the little pet-name made the corners of her cherry tinted lips turn up just a little. Her cheeks ached so from crying. 

**"Listen, I-"** their voices overlapped in what would have been a satirical manner had it not been for their unresolved banter from earlier that day.

"L-Ladies first..." the bell ringer mumbled, daring to take a seat beside her on their sheets lacquered with royal tears.

"Quasi, I love you," she told him, "I love you more than my own life. But I have a duty to uphold. I've made up my mind..."

"No need to say anything else..." he whispered. Good _Lord,_ it gutted him to accede to this, but... perhaps there was a solution that could be an elixir for both or their issues.

_Whilst taking a much-needed excursion outside the stone fortress that loomed over Paris as his home, the cogs in his strained conscious began to turn. He... he didn't know what to do. He hadn't meant to leave his wife, but it was all his legs managed to do lest they wanted to give out under the crushing weight of the phantom crown that he feared would soon be upon his head. Hell, he knew even if he wasn't a monster, he would be frightened to the brim of such a grim responsibility. Though Claude's methods were... questionable at the very best, he knew that being a ruler required public representations, blood-soaked hands, controlled sentiments, and a head held high. Though he couldn't corporally do the latter without pulling a muscle, it didn't matter. He had been raised to hide, to be a recluse._

_Then... he thought about the tears that bled from his wife's eyes when he had allowed such unseemly words to become known to her. He hadn't meant to say their union was a mistake... not even in the moment. So why...? Why had he defiled her mind with such a cruel testimony knowing how hard she took things? And... what could he do to make it up to her...?_

_His tears eventually crumbled to dust. How selfish was it to keep her from what she had wanted most? Not to be queen, he knew that was the last of her concerns, but... to have a family... A family hanging on the wall, at the very least, was sure to give her the drive she needed to be the best ruler Corinthia had ever seen. He believed she could conquer the moon if she used her tempestuous passions to her advantage. He had never fought with her in such a manner. When such matters came up, they made sure to get off of their chests whatever minuscule thing was bothering each other, and they always ended things in each other's arms. He feared painstakingly that there would no longer be such a calm after the storm with his wife._

_But... he vowed to protect her. And God as his witness, he would do it. He would protect her. He would endure thousands of rounds of the cruelty he endured on the first of January just to be her foundation, her cornerstone, her hero... She had told him that once, that he was her hero, and he would not let something as trivial as this take that away from them. To divide such a love that they had nurtured over almost two years would be a fool's doing. Despite his reservations, he'd do it for her. Because she was the love of his life, his radiant sunshine, his songbird..._

_His Mads... sweet Madellaine. His queen deserved much better than this._

He reached out his hands, wedding ring dull in the unreliable candlelight, and clasped the tiara as if it were conceived of the wings of a monarch butterfly. It practically floated in his careful, assured, and steady hands; and Madellaine had blockage in her throat, a tightening of heartfelt strain when he crowned her, placing the silver encrusted symbol of monarchy atop a bed of her aureate, resplendent locks that befitted his queen to the highest degree.

"You are my queen, Madellaine. And I love you," he grasped her hands with fervent power, though not enough to hurt her, "And wherever your life takes you, I promise you can count on me to be there..."

"You-you're saying...?"

"I'll be your king if you'll be my queen, Mads," he stroked her cheek, which now told a story of her woes as she began to weep once more. But, for the first time since their wedding day... her tears were provisions of celebration, appreciation, and _love_ for her husband who truly possessed a heart of gold. The very fact that he'd undergo her duty right by her side, be her navigating star, the stream down the route of being a righteous queen... it made her feel more accounted for than her beating heart ever had. 

She concealed her raw face into his chest and cried tears of transcendent joy. Her fortified husband, the bell ringer of Notre Dame, her prince, her king held her virtuously, kissing her tangled tresses, reveling in the scent of rosemary that she emenated as the nape of her neck was right beneath his nose. 

"Mmm..." he closed his tired eyes, spreading his fingers through her blonde hair, "I _love_ you, sweetheart."

"I love you more," she sniffled, smearing her tears from her eyes all over her face quite messily as she gingerly set the priceless thing atop her head back inside her saddle-pack. 

"I love you most."

* * *

**_"If you find me, my dear,_ **

**_Bathing lush in your glow,_ **

**_Among orchid years and_ **

**_Through pedestals of snow_ **

**_Love me, crave me, hurt me no more._ **

**_Only you could cradle my love to the shore._ **

**_Cradle my love darling, cradle it close_ **

**_Cradle my love to the dark, zephyr coast._ **

**_Tendrils of past have coiled my core_ **

**_Together, forever until we're no more_ **

**_Eastern stars polishing our blind wild senses_ **

**_Our future, our deity, our star-crossed offenses,_ **

**_Love me, crave me, hurt me no more._ **

**_Only you could cradle my love to the shore._ **

**_Cradle my love darling, cradle it close_ **

**_Cradle my love to the dark, zephyr coast._ **

**_I know you have found it,_ **

**_The womb of the crescent,_ **

**_Your luster, your wit,_ **

**_Your heart, evanescent._ **

**_I've bled out my hot tears,_ **

**_I've pictured your face,_ **

**_You've ten thousand years now,_ **

**_To reach me posthaste._ **

**_Love me, crave me, hurt me no more._ **

**_Only you could cradle my love to the shore._ **

**_Cradle my love darling, cradle it close_ **

**_Cradle my love to the dark, zephyr coast."_ **

The cadence of the song didn't fail to reach the mist of the city of Paris, the air heavy with petrichor, hushed swaying clouds threatening to lash out any moment with another bellicose fit of mizzle. Madellaine twirled in her hand a new piece of craftsmanship her husband had worked to create. As a sort of apology, he had carved his wife's essence into yet another figurine, but... on the top of her head, he had added a silver crown. The wooden rung at the thing's feet that served as a base had been carved into with the greatest meraki she had ever seen: "My queen."

She cradled it close to her heart, his love, just as her lullaby had commanded of her. And then, he saw it.

Normally, Quasimodo didn't go out of his way to watch his wife change clothes, for it wasn't really anything he hadn't already seen. But when angry red impressions caught the ridges of his eye as he blew out one of the two luminescent candles, he looked.

Her... her arm...

"Mads!" he cried, hopping to her feet, not giving her the proper time to slip her nightwear over her head without a startled jump. He pulled up her sleeve in alarm, sucking in air through his teeth as he saw her self-inflicted puncture wounds.

"Who did this to you?" he pressed, though he feared that he already knew...

Her reticence elucidated to his grim suspicions. He was bound to notice at one point or another...

"You can't be doing this anymore, sweetheart..." he sighed, rummaging through one of his drawers to find skin solvent and gauze to patch these up, "And if you do, please tell me..."

"I'm sorry..."

"The only one you should apologize to is yourself, love," he kissed her cheek, "I love you and I wouldn't want this habit to cost me you..."

She... hadn't thought about it that way...

"I'm s-" she was about to apologize once again, but caught herself and bit her tongue, "...s-sorry, Madellaine."

He shook his head slightly, face still scarred with worry over how profoundly she had pressed into her flesh. He inspected the punctures closer before clicking his tongue and pouring the rancid-smelling solvent into a wooden bowl. Seizing a sodden rag with his hand, to which he had to remove his glove so that it would not be ruined, he slowly locked into position right above her forearm.

"This will hurt," he warned, easing the rag down as gradually as possible so that the sizzle wouldn't turn into a boil too swiftly. She moaned, biting her lip, watching him swipe away the stains of her royal blood. 

"Are you okay?" he assured, stealing a glance up at her. She nodded.

He progressed the cloth wordlessly up to the crease of her rasceta, patting at the afflicted area. As she watched him so tirelessly work to make sure that she was taken care of, she truly affirmed into her spirit that he was her _raison d'etre_. She was his, and he was hers. He had flooded that lacuna that so violently tore wider every day until the first time he had told her that he loved her. And she loved him... oh, Lord above... she loved this man. She would have _no other_.

Once he wound her wrists with gauze, he sealed it with a kiss and guided her back to bed. Whatever would come bearing by tomorrow would just have to wait. Their insouciant spirits truly smoldered once he pulled the sheets over their bodies huddled close for warmth. Before he hovered over his wife's side of the bed to blow out the candle and give her a kiss goodnight, he got a good, long look at her. Her smooth, gilded complexion enraptured the man with such a force that it looked like he had been frozen in time, save for his fully-dilated pupils.

"What are you doing?" she laughed softly.

"You are so beautiful... I wish you could see through my eyes, Mads..."

She brought up her hand and palmed at his defiant hair which refused to sojourn away from her husband's face. She drew back the curtain hanging over his eyes, her latibule, and was immediately refreshed as if she had just swilled the coldest cistern's worth of water.

"I'd rather have my view," she murmured, nestling into his strong arms until he surrendered, rubbing her back as to lull her obviously still contending mind to sleep.

She was worth any sacrifice, any abditory was nothing compared to her. His heart swelled when he thought of her, his wanderlust to explore the depths of her truly magnificent, yet flawed mind all the same at its highest. He kissed the crown of her forehead, wound his arms tighter around her, and allowed the tenors of his voice, placid yet steady as to asphyxiate the cricket song outside the balcony.

**_"_ ** _Love me, crave me, hurt me no more._

_Only you could cradle my love to the shore._

_Cradle my love darling, cradle it close_

_Cradle my love to the dark, zephyr coast."_

* * *

_"Who is that...?"_

_"I... I don't know."_

_Just as one royal couple found catharsis in song, another stalked the streets of Paris, or rather, the ambiguous man traveling in and out of the heart of Notre Dame._

_"Let's find out, shall we?"_

_"I like the way you think, Esme."_

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wow, i actually did it! i wrote a song! i truly didn't think I had it in me!


	8. Chapter Eight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> https://www.deviantart.com/lolthisisstupid/art/Chapter-8-869241937
> 
> this chapter's sketch. finally, a happy one! as you can see, I've changed Quasi's appearance slightly so that he wasn't TOO handsome, but so that you could still see it underneath.
> 
> also tw: some light non-con themes.
> 
> sorry this is shortttt! I'm posting the next one tomorrow because your girl has lots of work to do, but I wanted to get something out today

Swirls of buttermilk, stardust locks creased Madellaine's cheeks as she stood to confront her reflection. One would think, by simply being granted with a passing glance at the young woman, that she was rebellious for having it severed so very crisp and short. It was easier to manage, easier to keep the astringent salts of Paris's breeze from drying the fine, split ends to brittle, sandpaper-like tresses that rubbed and scratched at her ivory skin, and... well... Quasi really thought it suited her. Time seemed to slow down with the secrecy against her ears, her ornately-carved tiara lounged atop her head, not befitting her simple cream-colored frock. She really didn't think she... _looked_ like a princess. 

But Quasimodo thought of her as his queen. 

She knew deep in the fathomage of her still-beating heart that he didn't covet a life of royalty such as this. His words the very week before were almost... distorted. It hadn't seemed comfortable, pleasant, or wise for him to agree so swiftly, but she knew it was because he couldn't allow the transpiring of the rest of his life without her. It made her feel... worthy. Certainly not to be queen, but, If Jehan and Quasi both encouraged her so, she knew she'd find that ember within that had been stifled in years of orphanhood. 

Suddenly, the priceless crown was seized from her, and she recognized that conflagration of auburn behind her in the reflection. Quasi had woken from his slumber.

When she turned around, the thing was nestled in his waterfalls of crimson locks, and made her giggle at his expression of mischievous vexation.

"Oh, my king!" she exclaimed playfully, veering into an awkward curtsy.

"Mademoiselle," he smiled his lightning-white teeth, and she came down with it soon. His grin was contagious.

He pulled her up to settle in his arms as he kissed her hastily, "Why are you so dressed up?"

"I'm going to meet my mentor for lessons," she stripped his tilted head of her crown and slipped it in her worn, leather satchel.

"Mentor?" 

"Lord Jehan," she declared nonchalantly, "His sister is the regent in charge of Corinthia while I'm here. He knows everything there is to know about being a princess."

_He._

Now, of course, Quasi knew his wife was allowed to share harmless candor with other men, just as he was allowed to with women, but it never stopped the tendrils of envy from snarling in his abdomen. He resented it when men were alone with her, not out of distrust of her, but out of distrust of other men. They could violate her, swipe her, rob her... But this wasn't at the forefront of his thought. That name, Jehan... he had heard it before... but where?

"Oh," he blinked, "P-Perhaps I could come with you? After all, I have a lot to learn, too."

"I don't see why not," she smiled, "But it's an all-day meeting. You might miss some things while ringing the bells."

"That's all right," he tangled his arms around her lean waist, "As long as I get to spend some of my day with my true love."

"And," she chided, rubbing his scarred face, "He's just a friend."

"I trust you, dear."

Just as they were ready to arise synchronically bound for another kiss, another tempestuous, sweet-as-rosebuds promise fetching all discernment of the world but the one enthralled within their affections, a thud of soldier's footsteps elicited a cry of confusion from Madellaine.

Phebous's frowzy hair was screened by a glossy lacquer of French rainfall (it truly seemed as if it could not stop raining outside) as he blossomed into the view.

"Sorry, ladies, to interrupt like this," he teased, reveling in Quasi's displeased facial expression as Madellaine's rubatosis made a meager attempt to flounder back into her subconscious.

"What's the matter?" Quasimodo's timbre was almost disappointed, battered by basorexia.

"There has been some..." he clicked his tongue unsurely, "Stranger coming in and out of the church at odd hours. I thought I'd let you know in case something happens up here."

"Ah, very well then, thank you," the bell-ringer still held his wife close, "Where's Esmeralda?"

"Back at home," he gave a curt wave of his hand. The mention of the virago who had stolen the sun god's heart was enough to put him in a more favorable mood, though they were wasted with twilight skies of no sleep chasing their tails, "She doesn't quite like when it rains for days like this."

"That's certainly something we have in common," Madellaine gave a dry laugh.

* * *

"My, dear princess, you're soaked!" Jehan exclaimed once he heard the feather-fall steps of his little chess piece. Her weather-beaten hair almost looked like bronzed mahogany, which was... really a color that he believed suited her in a way he couldn't put into words. His resolve to keep her out of his heart was running as steady as the dripping on his floors as she wrung the cloudy rain from her waterlogged hair. But... he figured that finding the girl's voluptuous figure attractive wasn't sin as he knew he'd marry her one day.

"Yeah," Madellaine laughed, "It's nice to see you."

He smiled, about to close the door to forbid the discharge of the freshet that was bound to come, but she clutched the knob on impulse.

"Ah, Jehan, I've invited my husband to join us. He's very nervous and I was wondering if you could give him some advice?"

Any thought of sphallolia he had rehearsed had bled out into the rain as soon as she said this. He had to banish the compulsion to stick out his lower lip in a bitter pout as soon as the other man followed his wife into the low-rise inn Jehan had rented. 

"Ah, good morrow, your highness," Jehan muttered, both sharing a bilateral animosity of jealousy that went unspoken. Sweet Madellaine, bless her soul, wasn't the best at reading a room, so the dense, humid fog that swirled in as soon as the men came face to face didn't pass under her nose.

"Good afternoon... Jehan, is it?" Quasi's throat pursed and his gut sizzled queasily at being marked with such a title. Goodness... this was _real_.

"Correct," Jehan nodded, "Quasimodo?"

"Mm," was all the man could produce from his throttled windpipes, "Y-Yes."

Jehan's adrontis was made even more fortified knowing this tutelage would go to utter _waste_ with this creature across from him. How could he teach a monster to be king?

_Well, no matter, he wouldn't be king for long..._

"We've got a royal flush here," Jehan switched back on his charm, "Star-crossed lovers. A man who married a lost princess. One could write a book about the two of you."

~~**_(hmm, I wonder who would do THAT?)_ ** ~~

They both went roseate in the cheeks, but only Madellaine truly smiled at the remark. It almost sounded... _sarcastic_ to Quasi, and all of the trepidations in his head droned relentlessly, looming aloft and threatening to shatter and send him tearing the awkward session to bits to protect his wife.

"I'd read it," Madellaine replied, crossing her legs as she sat down in a polished wooden stool donned with worn-out red velvet, the kind made as hastily as possible, the kind that had been there for _ages_. Quasi sat beside the princess, constraining every cell membrane that built up his figure not to shudder when his wife and this strange man shared a genuine smile. Quasimodo had learned through his time free from Claude how to be a good judge of character. Sometimes he didn't quite hit the target on unpredictable individuals, but one thing was for sure. He wanted to grind this pompous son-of-a-bitch to sand and feel every grit of what was left of him. 

"I have a feeling the story isn't over yet, though," Jehan added, and Quasi hypocritically began to scratch at the skin on his thigh, enough to draw blood if Madellaine hadn't noticed and gently shooed his hand away.

It would be Jehan's jealous rage that would lock the other man up, but his complacency to throw away the key. 

* * *

At the womb of Earth's horizon, the greys and ceruleans of celestial openhandedness in the sky gave birth to a violet, scarlet, twilight hodgepodge of time bleeding away from the bell ringer. Every time Quasimodo's eyes met with the window panes crusted with weather-made dust, the sun was teasing him, knowing full well that he was needed back at the cathedral soon for Vespers. The scarred skin around his eyes wrinkled with frustration.

 _God-forsaken bells_ , he thought, _can't you ring yourselves for just one day?_

He just didn't want to leave her _alone_ with him. The worst of people came out when the good in the world turned its back, even for just a moment. If he left her, he could not trust that she would be safe, that she wouldn't come back to the tower painted with bruises and lesions over every element of her body. And if the lust Quasimodo picked up in Jehan's eyes were indeed finding its new realm, flickering like midnight foil, he feared seeing parts of Madellaine enflamed in wounds that should _never_ be wounded.

But his little blonde pixie wife packed a punch when essential. He had once seen her get in a drunken bar-fight with a grown man who had attempted to spike her drink. She came out in tatters, but she was the last one standing. He had no idea whether to cheer her on or uproot her away, but once he saw her thrust her foot upwards and strike him in the eye with her wooden heels, his shoulders soothed just a bit. She yelped as her blonde hair was yanked, stray follicles being ripped from her scalp, nose bleeding, and sleeve torn, but still rising above the man and punching every part of him she could, even his unmentionables, breaking the skin with her wedding ring as he began to wail like a little girl. 

"If you ever mess with me or any other girl's drinks again, I'll kill you!" she drunkenly spat, pulverizing her would-be rapist's face until she saw red, not noticing when her husband picked her up by the waist and hastily rushed the wounded girl away. 

She had no memory of it, but Quasi knew he'd never forget it. She didn't seem to have it in her, truly, petite little blonde woman, but perhaps she had no filter when intoxicated, just like Phebous. But that man in the bar had been rather lanky and gave up way too smoothly. He fretted that Jehan would be way too much of a robust match for her small body to handle.

"Oh, darling, you'd better get a move on or you'll be late!" Madellaine spoke, not having been paying attention to the evening sky.

Quasi wanted to _vomit_. He had such a horrible feeling about this that he almost wanted to refuse outright.

"Fucking hell..." he mumbled under his breath, so quiet nobody had heard, "Y-You're right..." he stammered, leaning and down, kissing her cheek before whispering succinctly in her ear, _"Be careful getting home."_

"You, too, handsome," she mirrored, stroking his cheek before allowing him to take his reluctant leave, "I love you."

He hadn't heard her over his doubtful thoughts. It stung that he didn't reply.

Jehan wanted to cry out in joy, lord, FINALLY! He finally had some time _alone_ with her...

Oh, the things he wanted to do to her. _Unspeakable_ things... 

His fingers, his feet, every inch of his blood curdled in the most pleasurable, possessive way that his eyelid twitched. Just the cut of her dress, the creases and soft curves of her bosom, breasts full and delicious looking like fresh fruit from Valencia... it drove him _wild_. He would have already finished if that disgusting creature hadn't invited himself to their little get-together, but as always, just as he had painstakingly done for weeks since he met Madellaine, he bided his precious hours. He knew what he was about to do, he had planned it since he had left Corinthia, but now perhaps he could kill two birds with one stone...

Once the puff of chilled fall's air settled back to normalcy after her husband left, Jehan stretched, closing the book on the wooden table, not bothering to mark the place.

"Shame he had to go," Jehan lied through his teeth. Madellaine nodded.

"Yes, but I'll see him later."

Jehan wanted to _cackle_ at that.

"Well, you've worked hard, I think you deserve a break, why don't I get you a drink, milady?"

Madellaine paused, brushing the pads of her fingers along her wrist. 

"Oh, I..." she blinked, "I don't know. I don't usually take drinks or food from others."

"Oh, but you can trust me, your majesty," he smiled that charming smile, "You can watch me prepare it."

She bit her fingernail, pondering herself for a moment. True, she could trust Jehan... or at least she hoped so. He had been so encouraging and patient over the weeks, slow and sensitive to such a heavy topic such as her descendancy. He had taught her some royal ways, tutored her on her family tree, taught her how to dance like the Corinthians. She considered him a friend. But... she still really felt the need to watch him pour her glass. 

"Well..." Madellaine sighed in defeat, not knowing that she was about to turn the tides of her life by consenting, "Alright. I _am_ a little thirsty..."

"Excellent..."


	9. Chapter Nine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: HEAVY non-con themes. I never go into detail, being a survivor of SA myself, but I don't always approve of the themes I put into stories.

"Ugh!" 

Hildegard looked up from the shrouds of her own shadows, festered breath hitching as her cohort let out a long, childish whine.

"Yes, Tilde?" she asked, voice still remaining just as constricted and enigmatic. 

"Paris is so boring!" she complained, crisscrossing her black, sleeved arms over her chest, "The only fun thing we did was meet the princess and see the bells! I'm going to die if Lord Jehan doesn't hurry up!"

"Patience," Hildegard mumbled, "I may be from Sector 4, but I can tell you that there are plenty of things for you to distract yourself."

"Like what?" the other spat, "Dig around in the mud? Hildy, that's _boring!"_

"Quiet," the older woman clasped her lush voice, flicking her wrist irritably, "I'm just as eager to have the princess as you are."

"What?" Tilde asked, remaining virtuous to her high-pitched, childish tone, "What do you mean _have_ her?"

"Well, look at her," she blurted, gripping her biceps, "She's _gorgeous_. Her hair, her eyes... Did you see her hair, Tilde?"

"Her-" the younger halted, eyeing off into space, "I-I never thought you were _sapphic_ , Hildegard."

"What?" the occultist scoffed, almost snapping out of the chains of her heavy-weight urge to not indulge the other, "When did I say that?"

"Her _hair_ , her _eyes_!" Tilde mocked, sashaying around the taller, midnight haired girl, truly an enigma.

"I don't want to make love to her!" Hildegard emphasized, blazing her black heels on the boulevards of Paris, "I want to harvest her."

_"Harvest?"_

"Don't you think that her hair would make a _splendid_ spool of thread?"

* * *

_Deadweight._

The very next thing Madellaine could remember was water. Dense, high-pressured, foaming water. She hadn't remembered when her mentor had handed the glass of wine to her, hadn't remembered when she encapsulated the bitter, heavy with resin tasting drink, and hadn't remembered slumping to the unforgiving, cold floor, right below Jehan's boots. 

Her lids seemed cemented shut, crusts of her hour-long sleep making it impossible for her to determine whether her eyes were open or not. As her smothered brain, glossed with the drug in her veins, began to sharpen, she felt below her a plush, tousled surface, as though she was laying on someone's bed... Had she fallen asleep? Oh no, did she drink too much and blackout? Then, she noticed her equilibrium, which collaborated with her theory that she had fallen asleep at Jehan's. How rude of her... she thought. Her inclinations to roll over were curbed, but it took her a few seconds to notice that her arms and legs truly had no wiggle room. Reddened and bruised from the shifting in her sleep, her ankles and wrists were rubbed raw by rope, and Madellaine was too stupefied to understand truly why she couldn't move them.

"Jehan...?" she called out drearily, fighting the urge to go back to sleep, "Quasi...?"

"Good morning, princess," she heard her mentor's honeyed speech through the obscurity of the room, her half-lidded eyes fidgeting to open all the way.

"Jehan..." she repeated, though she couldn't find the rest of her brittle voice.

"You were asleep for quite some time," he confirmed, sauntering over to her and sitting beside her, "It's a good thing. This way, I was able to take you somewhere where your husband can't help you."

Betrayal was scrawled all over her lax, though desperate face as she realized right away what was about to happen to her. Or was this a dream? This had to be another nightmare, there wasn't a single chance that Jehan would do such a thing, she didn't even think he had a reason to. Defile the princess? That's worthy of execution twice over if she spoke up! 

"But..." she croaked, "I-I watched you pour my drink..."

"Silly girl," he muffled a laugh into his hand, "Don't you think I could have put anything in there before you came?"

"But-but we drank the same wine...!" she insisted, grievous dread enflaming her underused muscles. 

"Poison is an art, sweetheart," he stroked her unimportantly unkempt hair, now finally dry from the rain, "You _really_ need to be more careful with whom you trust, dear girl. But I really should thank you for your incompetence. Now, I'll get to have some fun with you and then finally take you back home for myself."

She made an acute, wounded guttural sound, wiggling as he got on top of her. No... no no no no no! No, how could she have been so stupid!? Those dreams, they had been a _warning! NO!_

"Please, don't...!" she could barely breathe, her heart beating so active that it sounded like the buzzing of a bee, her chest heaving, almost ready to throw up, "Please, Jehan, don't do this...!"

"You know," he unsheathed a dagger from his belt, now loose and wanton, prepared for what he was about to do, "I was just going to knock you out and take you back to Corinthia, but... That lewd cut of your dress, my dear, how shameful..."

"No...!" she tried to thrust up her hips, throw this man off of her, fluttering around like a rabbit in a snare trap, "Quasimodo, he- he'll look for me! You won't get away with this."

"That's alright, dear, he can search the ends of the earth," he grinned, "But I know what I'm doing."

Quasimodo had been right. She hadn't the might to stop him from getting into her frocks that night.

* * *

"No, all I'm saying is that you can't move that piece that way."

"Esme, that's not how it works, of course, I can!"

"Phebes, I won fair and square!"

"Hmmm," Phebous scrutinized their playing board with scorn, knowing full well that his wife admittedly had won their game of chess, "Agree to disagree?"

Esmeralda smirked at him, slithering onto his lap like a hungry, yet gorgeous snake, "Alright. Only if you give me a kiss."

He laced his arms around her middle, clasping his lips against hers, tasting the sweet candied berries of her breakfast still residing on her tongue. Before they could plunge themselves into the thralls of passion they had missed out on during their futile investigation, it was Quasimodo's turn to interrupt, nearly tearing through the door with brute strength and frenzy, _**"MADELLAINE!"**_

Esmeralda felt an unsavory sense of deja-vu, and a spark of languish docked deep in her vitals.

"SHE'S GONE!" Quasi wailed, the squalls of his inquietude over his wife's disappearance not failing to reach the captain of the guard, who tensed up protectively over the elysian blonde woman he had grown to think of as his sister. 

"H-HE TOOK HER, M-MADELLAINE, HE...!" 

"Shhh, shhh..." Esmeralda watered down her newfound anxiety, "Quasi, it's alright, we'll find her. Don't worry!"

"I knew I shouldn't have left her alone, I...!" Quasi wept, the poor man juddered as his bones wracked with bewailings, contorting his already deformed face into such a way that it threatened to rip. Anything could be happening to her, _anything! "That son of a **BITCH!** "_

"Esmeralda, can you see where she is?" Phebous said with a gravity she had only heard once before, an urgency for her to claim sanctuary from Claude Frollo when they had first met.

"I-I can't focus enough!" she cried, "Everyone _please_ calm down, I can't see..."

Though Quasi's blood had been interjected with boiled, molten ferocity and anxiety, he had to tamper it down to see if his friend could help. Though he couldn't help but mutter through his cramped throat ripe to topple "That son of a _FUCKING BITCH!"_

Phebous put a strong hand on his trembling knee, trying to command him to prevail silent. Esmeralda was not a sorceress, she was just an innocent bohemian woman with restricted abilities when it came to the umbrella term of magic. She had a knack for essence, anything involving such a thing, and her empathic heart willed her to see through their eyes if she was in the midst of a day when her senses were brisker than the razor edge of her husband's sword. 

She almost wished she hadn't... 

Neither men were exactly sure what she had truly seen, only she would bear it for the rest of her days, but her steadfast, heartbroken expression was not a good indication of Madellaine's safety. It didn't even seem pained, just... utterly shattered. 

"I don't..." her head swam in circles, and she had to palm away the salted sweat among her brow, "I don't know where she is... but she isn't safe. Phebous, I believe she's underground somewhere, or in some sort of dark, closed-off location. She's in... she's in a bedroom, but there are no windows."

Quasimodo knew exactly what that must have meant. And he knew he'd _never_ be the same again if his suspicions were valid.

Because he'd kill that bastard.

_He'd kill him._

* * *

Madellaine had tried her best to put up a fight, but by the end of it when he had finished and been satisfied, she had seemingly been unaware that it was over. She had gone pilant with shock, almost in a trance between living and dreaming. She had seen this before, tasted it first hand from the same man all her life, but it seemed that she hadn't truly gotten over it. The poor thing was trembling head to toe, blood oozing down her legs and pooling onto the sheets. She really wished she had made Quasimodo stay. She really wished that she wasn't so _obtuse_ as to have fallen for this. 

It seemed her throat was congested with the call to cry, but whatever meager endeavor came to her was quite pitiful. Broken and defiled, she closed her eyes, not grasping what else to expect, how to think, how to feel. Her body felt like dead weight, and even if she had been untied after the ordeal, she wouldn't have been able to move and make her escape. Sullied and sore, she tried weakly to find some cuttings of dignity when he re-entered the room, but she was just too debilitated to break from the agony he had poisoned her with...

The degraded queen refused to meet his eyes, her defiance only left in those teary blue amaranthine eyes. If he were to do it again, so be it... she wouldn't give in.

She dwaled through her battered mind, trying to block him out of her line of sight. The sound of something bottled being swished came to her, drips of some mysterious substance onto her torn dress. 

Everything ached so badly that she would have thanked him for pressing a damp cloth up to her nostrils, smothering her face until her pain smoldered away along with her vision. 

Jehan had needed her to fall back unconscious so that he may easily smuggle her onto the next ship out of France for him and his maiden lackeys. Bellamy was keenly awaiting his return, excited for the coronation ceremony, and amenable to sign a warrant that would make the princess a widow if she didn't do _exactly_ what she was told. After all, what kind of _monster_ keeps their princess _captive_ in a tower in Paris? And what kind of a wife would Madellaine be if she held her honor closer to her heart than her husband's life? Jehan saw the way she looked at Quasimodo, that changeling wretch, and he knew he could get her to do whatever she wanted if she put his very life on the line. Obey him and he'd simply live his life in solitude just as he had always wanted, rotting for decades in Corinthian custody. Defy him, and all Jehan needed was Regent Bellamy's curvaceous signature to mark the date of his execution.

And as a reward for providing him with the chloroform he needed to seal the queen's fate, Jehan had promised Hildegard a spool of beautiful golden thread.

* * *

"Mmm! Do you smell that!?" Tilde tugged on the laced sleeve of her cohort, Agathe, who seemed quite... seasick. Her nose was crinkled green, and so help her God if that wifty girl brought up the sour fragrance of the ocean one more time-

"Beautiful, salty breeze!"

_Retch!_

Ribbons of stomach acid churned in Agathe's frail stomach, and fell down the hull of the ship, meeting its fate at the neverending, nauseating mamoris lapping up the side of the boat.

"Oh my," Tilde's voice was kept in a low whisper, "Sorry, Aggie..."

_"Ugh..."_ she moaned, "Go make yourself useful and feed the princess, will you?"

"Yes, ma'am!" Tilde saluted in a very childlike manner, neglecting the other to waver in her desperation for the water to just shrivel up and die...

Madellaine was _desolate_. Caught up in the webs of her sorrow, her pain, her elutheromania... her ever so bitter heart shaking in her chest. Sailing miles and miles away from the man she loved, her beloved querencia, having been disgraced by verendus Jehan and knotted up like an animal by her own subjects, all of it left her wearisome and sick. _Very_ sick. She didn't want to eat, she downright _refused_.

Every night her hair was snipped, thread by thread, by the mysteriarch that was Hildegard, the very personification of what Madellaine perceived as the dusk with no dawn. The woman smelled like bottled up tears, and she had never heard the woman speak. She didn't even think that she was capable of the act.

Motherly Agathe had tried to clean her up and give her words of comfort, but Madellaine preferred not to swap words of camaraderie with her captors. She couldn't accept that this was happening to her... she had been so careful, so _assured_... Why was God doing this to her? Did He wish to kill her? What had she done for Him to _sanction_ this? She had _agreed_ to be queen, so what did they want from her? Was this about Quasimodo? Did Jehan intend for her to be his wife? Why was this _happening?_

"Your majestyyy!" Tilde called, "I brought breakfast!" 

"I'm not hungry..." the princess's tone was stoic, almost unkind. She felt so _unclean..._

"Aww, what's wrong?"

Madellaine had to stop herself from smacking the naive, young girl. Tilde truly didn't understand what was going on, she didn't get why her princess wasn't excited to go home. She was a mental ten year old with the energy and the bodily structure to truly help convey that. 

"Nothing. This entire situation is _perfect_."

"Oh, I get it..." she sighed, "You miss Paris, yes?"

"I miss my husband," she was on the brink of tears, of self-collapse.

"Husband? But you're not married."

"I am," Madellaine pulled herself together, patting down her tears as she bestowed the teen her ring, "But..."

_'You say one word about this, girl, and all I need do is sign your husband's death warrant.'_

"Nevermind..." Madellaine truly realized she was speaking to a child, her bellicose wiring down, leaving her feeble upon her cot, "Thank you... for the food."

"I'm at your service, my queen!"

No... Madellaine, she was no queen... she was a prisoner... a sack of flesh and bones and _nothing_ more.

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My drawing program is super laggy today so I wasn't able to make a sketch. Probably best, considering the themes here.


	10. Chapter Ten

"Good evening, princess."

_"Piss_ off."

Jehan clicked his tongue in a disheartened style, "Tsk, tsk... You women really never _learn_ , do you? I am a man and your future husband, and so you will show me respect."

"If you hate women so much, then why don't you just marry a _man_ , Jehan?" she said in a patronizing tone, her smirk making him snarl his bitter lips, rumpling his face.

"Disgusting," he spat, fastening her unscoured hair in his fist and demanding her to meet his gaze, "Sinful wretch."

" _You're_ disgusting," she wouldn't give in, she wouldn't fold, commanding even the slightest tatter of dignity in a realm where she sincerely had none, not a dribble, not a smidge. He backhanded her athwart her pallid face, stern knuckles splitting the skin, leaving blood skimming from her button nose, eliciting a cutting yelp from the girl.

"Look what you made me _do_ , Madellaine," he reviled, acting as though he hadn't _adored_ seeing her look at him that consternating way.

She wouldn't give him the gratification of a response, standing the test of his foreboding, razor-sharp eyes, which were a repugnant, callous dark brown. She could fulfill her desires to elude him, throw tantrums of insubordination, and flail under his lethal, wintry touch all she wanted, but he _knew_ he had broken her. He controlled her exactly the way he had arranged for years. God, he _finally_ got his way. 

"I'll let you get this childish display out of your system, girl," he seized her wrist, his malignant oppression upon her glass bones endangering her and threatening to put her in a sling, "It will do you good to submit and respect my orders."

He could use invective language all he wanted, but Madellaine would _never_ submit to his abuse. She had endured much eviler in her prosaic life, cruising through fire from the instant she toed her way away from her mother's womb, where she had been underweight and not crying exactly.

Sadie had fretted that her child had been stillborn, but it was her perseverance formulating in a powerful brew, a headstrong personality that many men found offensive. She held her tongue, but somehow was always to dispatch her point through eye contact alone, and it would propel even the mightiest of soldiers into a rabid frenzy to get back on her good side. Even the midwife noticed the way the child had huffed on the day of her birth, remarking that the kingdom was in for one of its most durable queens in history.

He could take her freedom, her virtue, shed her blood, and cut her hair, but that didn't matter. He could never wring his fingers throughout her character.

She was a fortress. She knew how to retreat to her bomb shelter to withstand the most substantial of blows, to which she gave cynical kudos to Sarousch. The only person Jehan was really hurting was himself.

She'd plunge herself into the sea before giving in, but with every fiber in the grand tapestry of her fury and hate, there was just as much love in her abundant heart. It hindered her, in a way, how much she loved her husband and her friends. She almost wished in the most selfish way possible that she could conjure an aganapesis for Quasimodo, scorch him out of her heart so that she could get it over with, and just die. But she couldn't. He apricated in her drumming heart and never got branded by her brilliant sunshine. It bronzed him with passion and pleasure, and God be damned, he loved her. And she loved him _too much_ to make him a widower. 

Seraphic Madellaine would have to remain stubborn-minded if she were to indeed outlive this calamity. Outlive this for _Quasi._ Such a frank, ethereal woman, yet not even her husband truly knew how far her elastic sturdiness would range.

She was born of fire, and she would blaze like the pyre she would bind Jehan to.

So, he wanted her? Well fine, then. He could have her body, for it belonged to nobody else but herself as far as she was concerned, not even to her husband. Of course, when it came to sensual, lustful urges, Quasimodo was the only person she would allow to accompany her to bed and quell her passion for him, and she had promised him this, but she didn't _belong_ to him. She _belonged_ to nobody. This epiphany she had come to on her nineteenth birthday was perhaps crafted with the last vestiges of her self-worth. Jehan could take her virtue, but never her heart. And if he wanted that too, she'd give this ice-cold monster her wildfire full on.

After all, fire melts ice.

* * *

"It's been days, Esme..."

"I know, Quasi..." 

"She-she could be...!" he didn't dare say it. He didn't dare tempt the fates, as it had never gone suitably for him when he stepped outside of his stagnant normal.

"She's not... you must relax, we'll find her."

"I never got to tell her how much I loved her for the last time..." 

Quasimodo felt utterly _useless_ just mucking around the bell tower, not grasping what to do in order to get his wife back. With each transient moment as his lungs toiled in overdrive, he wondered if she had just drawn her last breath. He wondered while lying wide awake beneath the absolute luna of the neverending noire sky, if that man's filthy hands were all over her, in places only he had the privileges of seeing and touching. He couldn't sleep, he couldn't eat, all he could do was immerse his fragmented body in his dictatorial worry. It weighed more cumbersome than the bells he rang every day, tortured him worse than a smack from Judge Claude Frollo ever could. How could he leave her alone...? How could he not have remained there and defended her, shielding any blind peril with arms outstretched in front of Jehan's prey? He didn't even have the energy to ring the bells, all he had time to do was pace back and forth, waiting tortuously for Esmeralda to give him updates on her surroundings. He tasted every instant of time scrape by, and he _resented_ it. 

And he resented himself. He hated himself for forsaking her, loathed _himself_ for breaking his promise to protect her to ring the godforsaken _bells_. He knew there was something that could go awry, he sensed it in his very tendons the moment Madellaine had told him she was going out. But he took a chance, like a fool, truly like the monster Claude had conditioned him to believe he was, and now she was in grave danger. Just the thought of being trapped within the confines of his body made him want to scream, not because of his ugliness this time, oh no. 

But because he wanted to get his hands on himself, the man who had left poor Mads to die. Any out of body experience Esmeralda could conjure for him would truly be fatal. He'd pulverize himself until he was nothing but a matted bloodstain on the Earth.

"Quasi..." Esmeralda's skirts pooled around her as she gracefully sank to her knees, taking her closest friend's face in her slender hands, "She knows you love her. And you'll be able to tell her again. We have search parties all over France. We'll get her back, okay...?"

"I just can't bear to stay here knowing she's out there," every fingerbreadth of his body, every angle was inscribed in a language of _wrath_ , fully prepared to kill human vermin if need be, "I have to help."

"There's nothing we can do," the gypsy girl pet his tangled, matted hair, "We just have to wait. I don't have the energy right now to see, I've not been feeling very well. But Phebous is deployed with his men all across the country. We'll find her, Quasimodo."

Something about Madellaine being in France didn't settle right with Quasimodo, almost like a spoiled fillet of roast he had neglected to store in the icebox before eating. They were star-crossed lovers, after all, soulmates, and his heart always behaved as a compass would on the maiden voyage of their young marriage. Young and stupid, they had been when they first crossed paths, yet their journey to faithful, delicate adulthood really began when she had agreed to marry him. Or, for lack of a better term, the night she hadn't stopped him during one of their many splurges of osculation, allowing him to take her fully, take her how she was. The joints of his thumb twitched, his heart skipped a beat, (well, several) as he began to submit his brain to excavation.

If there was no good news in France... maybe the brother of the leader of Madellaine's kingdom was taking her somewhere else... oh stars above he had wasted so much time! He knew where she was going! For the love of God how had he not come to this conclusion already!?

"She's not in France!" he squeaked, and for a moment, given the failure of his voice to cooperate under such a sudden bolt of speech after bitter silence, his voice could have been mistaken for a child's. Normally he'd be abashed, but he cared about nothing more than Mads right now, just getting her back to their tower. 

"Pardon?"

"He's taking her back to her homeland!" Quasi really wanted to butcher himself for being so _thick-skulled_. Perhaps he had been so boarded up in his distress and eagerness to help that he had seemingly forgotten to scour his brain for valuable clues. He had wasted so much precious time he almost wanted Esmeralda to smack him in the jaw due to his incompetence. He felt as if he were being drawn and quartered, every joint in his broken body was screaming out to her, every pint of his blood spelling out her name. His brain truly wasn't in cahoots with his foundation, for he felt himself fleeing to somewhere he didn't know. He'd let his feet lead him along the route, entrusted them to deliver him somewhere that could help his poor Madellaine... his precious wife, who would surely want him lifeless for abandoning her.

Esmeralda couldn't keep up without breaking a good sweat, Lord above she felt queasy. Her bones were dry enough to snap like twigs under the speed it took to follow this grown man across the streets of Paris. Her back threatened to lock as her raven hair billowed around her. Was she truly getting so old that she couldn't run as she had during the Feast of Fools? The sun cooked down on her spine as if she were roast chicken, back betrayed by the brazen cut of her dress, no cloud allotting her tan skin a reprieve. She had wanted it to stop raining, but now she had wished those protective clouds would come back and cool her better than her sour sweat lolling down her delicate jawline. It didn't help that her breasts ached so badly...

"Quasi, please, wait...!"

Quasi couldn't allow his body to halt, but he was able to slow his desirous stride so that she may catch up to him. He set a hand on her back, frying with the vexation of the accursed sun.

"Are you alright...?" he asked.

"I-I'm fine, just... feeling my age, I guess."

"But... Esme, you're twenty-four," his voice wilted even further in concern; if that were even possible.

"I know," she managed a laugh, "Maybe I've gained some weight."

"It doesn't look like it," he said without thinking, "N-Not that I-I'm _l-looking_ or anything, I-I'm just saying-"

That truly made Esmeralda giggle, poor Quasimodo... "I know."

* * *

The pigment in Madellaine's eyes turned dimmer and more contaminated with each transient day on the sea. The trip was more longspun than she thought it would have been, and even then, she didn't think she'd be enslaved to such a situation on her voyage home. She thought she'd have her husband by her side as she inclined over the bow, eyeing indifferently at the waves lapping the hull of the ship up like confectionery. She hadn't eaten very much, everything that adhered to her tastebuds just crawled there like metallic resin, and the growl in her stomach was easy to disregard in comparison to the skewered ache in her still-beating heart. She had been somewhat lucky that Jehan hadn't taken her to bed since the night she had been kidnapped, but he never held back on marking up her ethereal features. Her lungs felt shriveled up with tears she couldn't seem to summon, no matter how laborious she milked her eyes to release the tautness. The trade winds seemed to fancy sewing its extremities through her hair, almost deflated and straight with stress. It didn't help that Hildegard had cut it, and she frankly did not want to know why she visited her sleeping compartment with shears every night. The loss of her hair was the least of her grievances. The only thing she could think of was Quasimodo. That was it. And for some _reason_ , she dreaded that he would be cross with her for 'sleeping' with Jehan. She felt disgusting, cramping her legs together at all times, unable to rid herself of the sounds of the bed creaking, his hand encompassing her throat, destroying her with every shift superimposed upon her that had responded in her memory like _hours_.

"Your highness?"

"Yes, Agathe...?"

"May I have a word with you for a moment?"

Madellaine hadn't the energy to speak, but she figured that it was better than feeling sorry for herself. She inclined her head in agreement, turning around and resting her back against the railing separating her and the luscious death she so desperately coveted.

"I knew you when you were a baby, my lady," Agathe mused, daring to tread closer to the broken princess, who shifted away slightly. She didn't want to be touched, she could barely handle having someone in her presence. 

"And I know you don't want to be touched, that's all right," she added, "But I really need you to be strong. Your husband needs you alive."

Madellaine was stupefied. "Huh...?"

"You have to _survive_ this," she urged, "I see in your eyes that you're dying, your spirit, and once that's gone there's nothing left. I know you can do this because I survived Lord Jehan too."

This made Madellaine's throat undergo congestion, swelling up the well and drawing sour lemonwater to her lids, the sentimental fountainheads that had been parched dry from overuse. Jehan had done this to other women? She could grasp why she had been a target due to her status, but why Agathe? Was he just some sort of _satyromaniac?_ It wouldn't make him much different from Claude, the apple doesn't fall too far from the tree, after all.

"I-I'm sorry..." she muttered, "Truly... I will find a way to get us out of this, Agathe, I promise."

"You truly have the makings of a great queen," she glittered, words almost bordering on senseless, and Madellaine was about to weep, "I will see you at supper, your majesty."

After a curt bow, much like a man's, one arm forded over her concave stomach and one across her back rather than a woman's benign curtsy, Madellaine was left isolated to digest the new splurge of erudition. She mumbled something in Scottish, something about how she truly had someone on her side, and as soon as it jostled her full-force, she stood up a little straighter. The flag of Corinthia curled high above the billowing sails as she gaped up at the heavens, and the winds decided to operate cool and quiet, almost perfect timing.

Perhaps, just maybe, she would be the woman to get word to her husband.

* * *

Locks were quite a trivial thing in Quasimodo's life. Claude had not needed one to keep him bound to the cathedral, because he knew if he did, the boy's brute strength would temper any wooden barrier. This was perhaps the one thing Jehan had not factored into his equation of holding his wife hostage. Quasi's ambition and love for his wife were the keys needed to rip down the door, splinter by splinter until the dull, sun-soaked room finally flooded his senses. The goat-cheeses that Madellaine had brought for lessons were issued to mold and waste away on the table, and the scent was putrid, making Quasi cover his nose with his sleeve. Esmeralda slipped a handkerchief from her brassiere and copied her friend, filtering the sickening air away from her sharpened senses. 

"It smells like something died," Esmeralda mumbled under her breath.

"Please don't say _die_ ," Quasi implored, venturing to strike a match to kindle the half-burnt candles decorating the walls. Wood chips were strewn about from his barricade, and Esmeralda inadvertently walked on one with her bare feet, making her curse. 

Little particles of golden candlelight illuminated the room, though they weren't much help. Esmeralda wished she had taken sage to singe away the scent, it made her want to _puke_.

Quasi was able to tolerate it well enough to know what he was doing, careful not to slice himself on any of the protruding corners of furniture that were only slightly made clear by the candlelight. 

"Bedroom, bedroom..." he mumbled. He knew she wouldn't be there, but he had to search every niche and crevice, every depression in the walls from Jehan's fits of rage. Literally _anything_ would help...

"I found a door," he exclaimed, wishing he had brought an oil lamp or torch or _something_ to help him make out his surroundings better than a pathetic little patron of fire, trying its best, but failing.

"Open it," Esmeralda commanded, and he didn't need to be told twice. 

If the smell could get worse, it did.

"Ugh!" she bellowed, playing tug of war with her vitals not to throw up _everywhere_. She had to leave the room, not being able to tame the smell in time to stop herself from getting sick. Quasimodo coughed and shriveled up his nose in revulsion, the tangy blow of metal in the room wafting into his searing nostrils.

It smelled like blood, sweat, and... something unidentifiable. 

There were a pair of breeches lying pathetically at the hem of the disorderly bedsheets, as well as slight shreds of white linen peppered on the floor. Quasi set the candle down on the cabinet by the bedside, intestines tied into a knot, ready to sign away his very life when he saw the stains on the bed.

"Oh, Mads..." tears slid along his heartstrings, being strummed by the very thought of his wife being degraded inches from where he stood.

An extensive, slimy, discolored clot of dried blood sprawled menacingly on the mattress, and just to its left... a heartbreaking sight.

The worries Quasi had for her had seeped to the foreground of his waking nightmares. Being a man himself, he knew exactly what that second stain was, and it struck a chord of heartbreak in his tendons, falling to his knees and beginning to sob.

"Oh, Madellaine... I-" he gasped, unruly, unwanted scenarios welling up inside of his tormented mind, bleeding from him in the form of frosted tears amidst his scarred face. "I-I'm so sorry, sweetheart...!"

Esmeralda had always said regrets were 'moral residue.' Like something arduous to remove got fastened onto you when you did something against your better judgment. Quasimodo didn't understand it until this evil he had caused upon his wife transpired, now the residue seemed impossible to eliminate, like an indelible blemish on his already damaged self-worth. He had left her... and now... _now..._

_"Oh, my sweet Mads,"_ he lamented, bunching up the sheets in his taut, calloused hands, _"I'm sorry, I'm so so sorry...!"_

_God as my witness, I'll **KILL** HIM. I'LL KILL THAT BASTARD!_


	11. Chapter Eleven

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> https://www.deviantart.com/lolthisisstupid/art/Ladies-in-Waiting-869462804  
> I decided to make some rough sketches of the three maidens under Jehan! Agathe de Valois, Tilde Seymour, and Hildegard Burnadette. 
> 
> I have a plotline for all three, and I'm actually really excited about it!

_'Snip!'_

Princess Madellaine sighed, swirled over on her side, striving to get comfortable as her glorified hairdresser took secluded strands of her curls from her scalp. This girl had been opening the creaky door to her ship's compartment night after night, striding perfectly against the tides of the ocean sashaying the ship around like a mere toy. She also had to brave the aequoreal plunge of the intensity of the future queen's eyes, though she faltered and sidestepped slightly when the princess looked at her. 

Hildegard had always wanted to be blonde. She had always yearned to be beautiful, to be able to afford upscale soaps and oils for her abundant, sleek midnight hair, sheets slipping down in ribbons around her face, not allowing others to truly see what she was all about. But she wasn't. She was a quatre, dysfunctional and impoverished, only good for mopping the floors and picking up the master's scraps. She kept to herself, for men never took a liking to her selcouth personality. She was not amorous, nor did she wish to be, but sometimes... certain attributes made her organs feel slick and out of place, almost aquiver. Like the princess's eyes, for example. And her hair... her gilded, ambrosial hair she wanted for herself... 

"Mademoiselle, might I please ask what you've been doing?"

Hildegard hardly checked up from her shears for a brief moment, her suffocating lamps of sooty black pupils darkening the room even further.

"Forgive me, highness," she whispered lowly, and Madellaine was spellbound by the depth of her ostensibly bottomless tone. "But I need to eat."

"Pardon me?"

Hildegard didn't want to vocalize anything further, she was ashamed of herself. Madellaine smoothed the girl's hair from her eyes, swiveling her aquatic vessels of sight along the tenebrific woman's character. Her face almost looked wind-worn, hollow... _cimmerian_... She felt pity for her, deep in her soul and wit, knowing that this girl was fighting her own wars. Even the birds in the heavens cast shadows upon her. It almost seemed like a trick of the light, or lack thereof, when their eyes engaged and the room became ice cold and dingy black. 

"I..." she stayed static, the crackling of her aching stomach calling out to the princess, "I'm just... I'm hungry... I need your hair to pay for my food... Lord Jehan said people would pay a high price for golden thread..."

"What?" Madellaine stared even deeper within her, "Oh... oh, dear. No need to do that... I'll lend you some of my food."

Her eyes almost lightened a shade when these words were made known, "N-No, I... thank you, m-madame, but... back home I have nothing... and your hair is just so... beautiful..." 

"Well, thank you," Madellaine felt pity for this girl deep within the marrow of her very skeletal structure, "But... all you needed to do was ask me. I'm sure I could lend you some money." 

"R-Really...?"

"Yes," Madellaine smiled, "Of course. I've struggled with hunger almost my entire life, I understand what it's like."

"But... you're a princess."

"I was poor in my childhood, mademoiselle," the blonde woman admitted, twisting her fingers into knots. The princess's French accent was as thick as her woolen cloak which draped around her malnourished body, constantly crying out to be fed. 

"O-Oh..."

Hildegard felt extremely morally corrupt doing this, exhausting the other's funds, but... she was desperate. She was so famished and she just... she ached to stay in the current and muster up the will to continue living in Sector 4. She didn't feel as though she lived. Her heart beat against her chest, her blood circulated in and out of her heart, but she wasn't alive. She was existing. She was just a waste of space... 

"I'll get a sum together for you, alright? I promise. Just hang in there."

"I thank you from the bottom of my heart, your majesty," she susurrated, "God bless you..."

"Hey," Madellaine proposed a likeness of a smile, "Things will get better, I promise."

"I hope so, madame... I truly do."

"Please, call me Madellaine," the sunshine amongst the maiden in the moon conceived incandescent shadows of a new crescent-shaped face, nursing off of its tame restoration of peace and perhaps... friendship.

"Hildegard..." she dared to take her voice up a few octaves, "Hildegard Burnadette."

* * *

Madellaine wasn't confined just to her claustrophobic bedchamber on the ship. She was free to traverse among the deck, walk among the people on the ship, and gaze out into the icy waters below. Some days she preferred to just keep to herself, cry to her heart's content in her cramped, meager seclusion, but... The scent of the briny, yet almost poetic waves called out to her when she was feeling exceptionally trapped. She _was_ trapped, but... Perhaps being among the common folk, like Octavius who mopped the floors, was the last slice of freedom she had left. There was no way she could escape, anyway. It was either love him and be his queen or die... 

_'Choose me, or the fire.'_

She had never felt so bad for Esmeralda in her entire time knowing her.

The breeze crystalized the tips of the princess's hair in the mist of the sea, almost like the petals of the sunflower in early spring dotted with morning dew, as she wondered if she'd ever see Quasimodo again. Her heart couldn't get his couthy love out of the battlegrounds of her vacillating conscious. She missed running her gaze along his minutiae, the sound of his brontide heart beating as he slept beside her, arm around her middle, curling into her as if she'd disappear if he ever dared to let go. People said she had come down with a case of kalopsia when it came to her love for him, but she truly didn't understand what _wasn't_ beautiful about him. In fact, she felt extremely frustrated when people didn't make any meager attempt to get to know him, that she had been his first love because of his appearance alone. Sometimes she doubted herself, doubted that she was truly the most beautiful person he had ever met, the most charming and compassionate woman he ever had the fortune of loving, though he reinstated this every single day. He had no other business in the love department, just Madellaine, and he wondered if he would think so highly of her seemingly nonproprietary beauty and character if he had led a normal life. She worried that she was just his second choice after he had fallen in love with Esmeralda, whom Madellaine looked up to like an older sister. She sometimes even worried that, if Quasi had a choice between the two women, he'd choose Esmeralda, the voluptuous, skilled, mystic gypsy woman whose beauty didn't seem to hold a candle to her own. After all, Quasi and Esmeralda had been through so much together, known each other for so long, met under such adventurous circumstances. Why did he love _Madellaine? Why?_

She felt a crass tug among her pectoral muscle, and she felt winded by the intensity of the ephemeral pain. 

All of a sudden, a squall of a mistpouffer caught her hearing, and she peeled her gaze from the water to the ship's creaky railing. 

"Tilde, get down!"

"Don't be such a dorbel, Agathe!"

"You're going to hurt yourself!"

Madellaine's chapped lips severed as she tried to incline her head to see what all the fuss was about. Lily-livered Madellaine felt a collision of fright escape her lungs when she saw one of her acquaintances, Tilde, the maiden who brought her food to her chamber, drunkenly hobbling along the banister. 

"Tilde!" she squeaked, throwing herself forward, "Please get down...!"

"I'm _fine_ , your grace...!" Tilde's voice was a mere gust of wind as she attempted to evaluate her steps amongst her buzzed thesis as to why she had to do this, "This is fun...!"

"It won't be when you're ailing of hypothermia, please...!" Agathe flanked the dauphine's pleas, the textile of her Sector 1 headpiece gliding in the wind behind her bound hair. Madellaine attempted to inch closer and grab the girl's foolish hand, her fetching features nearly melting in her dowdy drunken stupor. But just as the skin of their hands brushed against each other, the princess's governance upon her digits being established, Tilde slipped. 

* * *

When Quasimodo slept, he held Madellaine's favorite dress in his arms.

It was scented like mantled jasmine, though he knew she didn't use perfume, and it always puzzled him how she managed to compose such a herbaceous scent. In fact, it was the very first thing he noted about her when she had roamed into his tower. With her came the most floral swift of breeze he had ever smelled, even after he had been granted liberty by his late master's death. Though her name spread along his tongue like warm milk, he always thought she should have been named something like Primrose or Azalea to befit her blooming zen inside and out. Her marigold hair was as soft as buttermilk and her hibiscus tinted lips were so savory. She was his flower, the life after something tragic, the promise of the love and company he so desperately deserved. 

But he was wilted when he didn't have her heavenly glow, chilled without her sunshine and passion. He needed her, and her dress was all he had left of her.

When Madellaine had gone missing, Esmeralda had ordered Quasi to stay with her so that he would not be left alone to harm himself. He would have downright refused, but with Phebous gone with his men around the outskirts of Calais scanning for the princess, there was nobody to take care of her when she found out she was with child.

There was nothing left for them to do while awaiting the next ship to Corinthia but just sojourn in Paris, though Quasi was half-prepared to brave the broad seas and swim _himself_ to his wife. 

He yearned for her so badly that he befell into a depressive state much like an alcoholic on withdrawal. He couldn't eat or sleep, and when he accomplished to succumb to half-hour shifts of garbled sleep, he waded through deep visuals of the memory of his wife. Any night could have been her last and it subdued him so badly that he often wept all night over her breath stuttering to a halt in various scenarios that he couldn't rid himself from.

He couldn't go _on_ in life recollecting that he had _deserted_ his duty as a husband to protect her.

His wrought-iron grip on her gown threatened to rip it if he were not careful. The larks rang quiet, and it distressed him not to hear the sing-song lullaby that was the only thing besides Madellaine that could aide his slumber. He only heard Esmeralda murmuring little nothings in her sleep, and he swore she elicited the name of his long-dead figure of what a father was supposed to be: _Claude._

He let out a petulant sigh, his hipbones cramping slightly as he shifted on the plush mat he lay on. Esmeralda would have allowed him the bed, but he didn't want her sleeping on the floor with the child nestled in her womb. In any case, he had slept like this for nearly seven-thousand nights before Claude had crumbled to ash on the steps of Notre Dame. Phebous didn't like that he rested on the warped floorboards and commissioned him a bed that would fit in his sleeping nook. Luckily, he was not having a finicky day with spinal pain, so he had no issue with where he lay. The only thing on his mind was his wife.

The sands of eternal seconds tied the air into knots that were difficult to breathe in. He banished his tears deep within him, not wanting to rouse his friend from her sleep when she was now resting for two. He tried to keep his mind off of Madellaine, querying what Phebous would say when he heard the news of their nurturing family. The child would likely be gorgeous, for Phebous had strong genes when it came to looks, especially a sleek jaw and Greek nose. Esmeralda had apparently gotten lucky, for her parents hadn't been all that conventionally attractive, and she sometimes challenged the validity of them having truly conceived her. 

Quasi laved the pads of his rope-burned fingers along the lip of the dress's collar. And then something came to him.

He _had_ heard the name Jehan before. And he remembered exactly where.

* * *

_Oh, for God's sake._

Dangling between her soon-to-be lady in waiting and guaranteed death jostled an atmosphere within herself that she in fact did _not_ desire Tilde to let go. 

"Your Highness!" Agathe's cry came out watery, but not as much so as the droplets of water staining her remaining leather flat, the other having slipped off and sunk to its watery grave.

Madellaine whimpered like a kicked puppy and desperately tried wiggling up Tilde's screaming form, trying to stay apart from the schools of fish minding her presence mere feet above them. She truly adjourned incessantly from water, hating the feeling of being drenched, save for only _maybe_ when she waltzed with her husband in the rain a few weeks after they had met. She felt a wintry chill broadcasting from the wind-torn surface of the merciless sea, and it made her feel even more ill than before if that _truly_ could be possible.

"Hang on, don't slip, Tilde!" 

Poor Tilde was intoxicated and her head spun with the fury of the volatile wine she had consumed perhaps too much of. Her short bob whippled around her heaving shoulderblades as she held on desperately to her queen and the vessel, feeling strained apart by the force of gravity threatening to have her executed for the murder of the queen.

Madellaine was truly questioning her position as a Christian when temperamental threats like this risked her very life. 

She heard the wind resistance of a rope cutting the air just beside her, being tied to the balustrade of the stern of the ship, and she had to painfully wait and dampen her urge to grab it right away, which would send Agathe tumbling down as well. Once she heard confirmation from her, she swung herself over to the rope desperately, scrambling up from hypothermic death so quickly that the rope frayed just a little, but fate finally decided to grant her mercy so that it would be safe for Tilde to climb up as well. Once the two women were safely bridged on the railing, they toppled to the floorboards of the ship and Agathe viciously grabbed Tilde up from her cravat.

"See what you nearly did?" she bellowed, "Mind yourself, child! Use your brain!" 

"I-I'm sorry, Your Majesty," Tilde trembled, wanting nothing more than to flush herself out sober with pints of water.

"I-It's alright, I'm just glad you're okay..." Madellaine's chest trembled and boomed with her unhealthily quick heart-rate. The poor Sector 2 girl was way too overcome, and Madellaine could see this, so she softly smoothed the lapels of the girl's jacket and tried to summon a smile.

" _Are_ you okay?" she repeated.

"Y-Yes," Tilde's transgression of fear shattered in the air as she spoke in a hushed gasp, and she stuttered when the queen smiled in relief.

"Good," she smiled, "Now, let's get some water into your system and lay you down, alright?"

Tilde's usual jovial attitude sprouted beneath the cracks of her frightened exterior as she nodded, slinging her aching arm around the dauphine's shoulder and allowing herself to be carried off into the arms of a woman she hoped deep down would turn out to be a companion. 

And oh, the stories Madellaine had booked for her sumptuous beloved, the man she hoped above any other miracle reserved for her life that she would see once more.


	12. Chapter Twelve

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> If this was short, I apologize! I've been a little busy but I had to get this chapter out.

_"Master...?"_

_"What is it, boy?"_

_Claude Frollo hadn't frequently gotten probes such as this from his adopted son, save for the exclusive request here and there to be able to go outside and witness things from ground level. The boy was ten, and already he was abnormally talented in ringing the bells of his succinct little home that weighed hundreds of times more than he did. The aforementioned kid was obedient to a fault, much easier to tame than Frollo had incipiently foretold. He hadn't anticipated the little demon he had been guilted into blaspheming Paris with to have such an open imagination; and to get him out of his silver hair, Claude would frequently purchase him paints and whittling tools. Claude cared for the child, in his own twisted way, deep down beneath his heart of stone, and perhaps if it hadn't been tampered with by years of detachment and failure, he would never have attempted to rid himself of the wretch in the first place._

_"Do you have a family? Besides me, master?"_

_Claude's expression slumped to an even more exhausted knit of his brow, and he licked his fingers through the deformed boy's locks for just a moment._

_"Yes."_

_"Who?"_

_It seemed as though he hadn't wanted to impart any more, and Quasimodo made to apologize, but was quickly hushed by his ghostly, wounded master's voice._

_"A brother and sister. Jehan and Bellamy."_

_"How come they don't visit you?"_

_Claude remained silent._

_"Do you miss them?"_

_Nothing._

_"Son..." Claude's chest heaved, the slender bones of his shoulderblades threatening to cleave through his skin from the inside out, "Fetch me some wine, will you?"_

* * *

The man who had defiled his wife had been his uncle, then, correct? Was the world truly so small?

A quarter-pound of dread gushed within his larynx. Frollo's _brother_... that's what was so uncanny about him. That's why he hadn't trusted him with his wife. He had seen his master, the man who had abused him in his features, no matter how obscurely his recollection put two and two together.

Quasimodo really didn't _care_ that Jehan was apparently family. He hadn't cared that Frollo was his adoptive father when he had fought him in honor of his friend Esmeralda. Why should this be different?

Hell, if his mother, Florika, whom he had never had the fortune of knowing had attacked his wife, he would not have held back. He would regret it in the latter treks of time, but it mattered not in the moment. Madellaine was the only one to ever truly love him, the first person to ever utter those three words to him, and it was all he had to live for. It was the only thing his shriveled self-esteem had to nurse from. 

He had identified his mother's name from the lips of the Archdeacon, who had been the one to furnish her a proper burial after her murder. Florika. _Florika_... would she have loved him?

Apparently so, as she had died saving him. The survivor's guilt the boy had after the deaths of his only parental personages was lofty, and he frequently wished he had been the one to die in place of she and even Frollo when the midnights toiled even when the sun was glazing brilliantly over France. 

Would he soon cause the death of yet another offshoot of the remains of what should have been his family? Was he truly destined to have a _body count?_

_Well, if I am not going to hell for my appearance, surely it will be caused by the people I've led to the grave._

"Quasi...?"

He skipped out of his skin. "E-Esme? Are you alright?"

"Fine..." she mumbled, scrubbing the sleep from her emerald seafoam eyes that had given the woman her name, "Why are you still awake? Are you okay?"

"I'm worried about Madellaine, is all..." he half-lied. Of course, he was worried about her, but it was Jehan that now habituated his slumber like a buoyant poltergeist. Those damned brothers were _ravaging_ his life. 

"Oh, speaking of," she stretched her ramrod back, nearly bursting it in two, "Next ship to Corinthia leaves at dawn. You might want to get some rest."

"Yeah..." he blinked some white-hot tears away, praising God that his voice hadn't foiled him and crackled like the embers of the fire, "Thanks, Esme..."

"I love you like a brother, Quasi," she embellished, "And I'm so sorry this is happening to you. But I hope you know you have a friend in your corner."

"It means the world, Esme, truly. And I love you, too."

Esmeralda pursed her lips, her dense hair complicated in knots. "Do you want to have some tea with me? Talk about it?"

"I..." he nearly ached to cry, "I'd like that... I'd like that very much."

* * *

"What's this?"

"A ring, my princess. Seeing as though I am to be your husband, I figured I'd fetch you a little something to mark our union."

"I'll never be your wife, Jehan," Madellaine replied, though it had spread out more fatigued than defendant. If she could sleep for eras it would not remedy how onerous her eyelids wore on her once-beautiful face, and how her limbs swung uselessly like sandbags, feeling like a weight of tempered lead. Her face was a living colony of bruises and unfiltered loathing, and she looked at the glimmer of the man's anger ruminating upon his handsome face. _Disgusting_.

"Sweetheart," he sneered, "I'm afraid you have no choice."

"My finger hasn't the room for another ring, Jehan. I am taken. And my heart is already full."

"Well, the dotted line on your husband's death warrant for the abduction of you is not. But it _could_ be."

"Why, Jehan? Truly I ask this with my entire might. Why? What do you get out of this?"

"Think, woman," he barked at her, "I'll be king. I'll get my vengeance on that monster. I'll fulfill my brother's desires."

"No need to be cryptic with me, Jehan," she huffed, rotating the metal ring in her nimble hands, combating the urge to toss it out the porthole window, "After _ALL_ , I'll be your _wife_."

"Hush, pet," he booted her in the flank, but her emotional tribulation was so burdensome that she barely blenched, let alone noticed, "It's for me to know and for you to _never_ find out."

"Whatever, then," Madellaine felt like she was being strangled by some invisible force, as if Jehan's ulterior motives were rendering the wind being knocked out of her, "Please leave. Please."

"No. No, I don't think so."

"I'll scream if you lay a hand on me."

"Must I say it again?" he forcibly grasped her slender jawline, and she testified that she heard something burst beneath her pasty skin... or was it just her imagination? "You'll do as I say whenever I say it. You're mine now. _Mine._ Don't make me _beat_ you into submission."

"Beat me then," her lazurite eyes truly didn't belong to a peasant girl when she undertook the risk to defy his soulless, rust-coloration of sight. No, he witnessed the queen in her, and his frustration was quickly bought out by the impediment of this challenging woman.

" _Oh_ , Madellaine," he hissed, thwarting her efforts to keep her head held upon her neck by backhanding her. 

Madellaine solely spat the gore out of her sweet mouth that had told him of hundreds of things and recommenced her defiant position.

Any discoloration of her flesh was meriting less detriment to her than her very dignity.

"Jehan..." her callout to him was vulnerable, but not irritated. She carried out a trembling hand, palming it over the textile of his weskit, almost pleadingly, and it intercepted his concentration.

_"What?"_

"Don't you realize what you're doing...? How you're hurting so many people? Don't you think there are other means for satisfaction and success? Another way to get the power you want? I-I could have granted you whatever you wanted in court... but why must you take this route? _Why?"_

Madellaine's comely exterior nearly hindered his indifferent vigor, and he hadn't discerned that he had not been verbalizing his rejoinder when his ears were wed with the silver stillness of the chamber. 

"Please..." the battered princess's windswept words nearly made his muscles grow as wiry as his heart of stone, cemented beneath his skin as her Medusa eyes oscillated him in the worst way he could imagine. But instead, he dully glimpsed at her heavensent features and stroked her head, thumbing away the blood voyaging down her face.

"This is the only way," he said, "I see how I hurt you. But I can't care. Not with... not with Claude dead."

"Claude?" she cocked her head like a meddlesome kitten, and it sent a diverse type of appreciation for her features besides unadulterated lechery. She was quite charming in a lot of ways, ways that didn't profit him in bed. He knew she'd never love him. But... if he got to have such a pretty creature beside him, perhaps there was more than one reason for taking a new wife, one beside Florika...

"My brother," he whispered. 

"I didn't know you had a brother."

"His name was Claude. He died nearly two years ago."

"How..." why was she feeling pity for this man? "How unfortunate... H-How did he die?"

"He was murdered," his words turned more polar than the very glaciers of the northernmost satellites, and it indeed made the princess feel her temperature plummet, "By... by a monster. A _monster_..."

"Do you know _whom_...?" 

"His little antigodlin changeling _traitor_ , that... that..." Madellaine swore she heeded a glisten of wet anguish in the brims of his eye, though she didn't dare confirm if he was indeed weeping.

_"Quasimodo."_

Silence prevailed.

"What?"

"You heard me loud and clear, princess," he seized her wrist, "You married a murderer. He killed my brother, Claude. And now he has to _pay_..."

Was this some sort of wretched subterfuge? The atraments of Claude's assault on her husband and friend, dark plashes of ink Quasimodo hadn't meant to set free were the reason she had been kidnapped, abused, violated, and carted across the seas? Her soon to be required husband was her _in-law_...?!

"He..." she felt moths rippling within her, gushing through the skin of her abdomen and invading every fingerbreadth of her, but such vividry must, too, have been her imagination... "Jehan, he hadn't meant to. He had been trying to help him, but Claude fell... he slipped..."

"You weren't even _there_ ," he blenched into himself, and it seemed as though he had gotten shorter, "Claude is skillful. He would not have slipped. And even if he did, if he had never taken that _monster_ into his home in the first place, there would have been no struggle at Notre Dame. I could kill Quasimodo, but that would do no good. He would die and that would be it for him. I wanted him to feel the loss he made me feel ten-fold. I want him to suffer as I did and lose someone in his life that means everything to him. I don't wish to harm you, Madellaine. Truly. But it is the only way for me. You cannot convince me otherwise. Allow me this one thing, girl. I beg of you."

"I..." the film of caligo over her luscious voice wasn't missed by Jehan, "So I am to pay for the crimes he has committed upon you, then? Though he did nothing wrong? It wasn't as if he asked to be taken in by your brother. His mother, Florika, she-"

Florika...? Florika? Florika?!

_"Florika?!"_

Madellaine had unwittingly given this man yet another reason to aspire to make her husband suffer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> welp Madellaine gone done fucked up lmao. not her fault tho.


	13. Chapter Thirteen

_'Hic!'_

_"Madellaine?"_

_"I- 'hic!'"_

_Quasi hadn't ever heard his wife get unwell amidst hiccups. In fact, he hadn't presumed such a lovable sonance could originate out of a human, and though she was clearly cross and stymied trying to get it to halt, he couldn't help but feel his supple heart swoon._

_"Awww..." he smiled, "You're adorable, Madellaine..."_

_'Hic!' "N-No I'm not, you are! 'hic!'"_

_He had never gotten hiccups so burdensome either. It seemed she couldn't snag a breath, and she whined like a spoiled child not receiving her sweets. Quasi couldn't help but screen his mouth with his hand as he stifled a cartridge of giggles. She was so gentle... so adorable. She sounded like a small hare, squeaking in a modest, quilted cavity of a cage, knowing it would be someone's supper in a matter of hours. She had a luscious voice, even intense at times when she was jaded or sweet-talking him, but she sounded to him like a fairy tolling its little bell of a voice, and it made him smile. There were even times when the couple got into feuds and he couldn't help but bite back a meager simper when she talked, but having to remind himself that he was displeased with her._

_She implanted her face into his tunic, trying to muffle the din enslaving her body, but his small laughter didn't quite help._

_'Hic!' "What...?"_

_"You sound like a little lark," he remarked._

_"N-No I don't...!"_

_"The angrier you get, the cuter you are, my love."_

* * *

"Florika?!"

Madellaine felt the air in her lungs fail to tame, and she let out a tweet that was a mix of a startled gasp and a hiccup. Her husband had told her she sounded like a lark when this chanced her, but... she sounded more like a rat in a trap.

"Y-Yes...?"

Jehan's eyes nearly glimmered crimson and it frightened the poor girl. Insubordinate Madellaine now contracted under his stalwart gaze, and Jehan would have cracked a smile if the name hadn't sent him into such a tizzy. 

"Proceed," he muttered.

"Um..."

"Tell me..." his breath stuttered to a halt, "Tell me what happened to Florika. _Please_ , Madellaine!"

"Well..." she tried to avert her gaze to anywhere but the eyes of her captor, so that she may have the courage to continue speaking, "She... Claude caught h-her sneaking out of Paris and... a-and he thought that her baby was stolen goods so he chased her. She made it to the steps of Notre Dame, but during the struggle between her and F-Frollo, she was pushed and cracked her head on the concrete. C-Claude saw that the baby was... was my husband and he took him in because he was afraid of God's wrath."

"Who told you this?! How do you _know_ this?!"

"T-The Archdeacon at the c-cathedral, Jehan... Claude himself told my husband in the end what had transpired... why do you ask...? Why are you so upset?"

"That wretch... that demon is my _son?!"_ he yelled, so uncivil that she swore the ship rolled along the marmoris from his rage. Madellaine didn't risk to tongue her confusion in concern that her skull would meet the same fate as her mother-in-law's had two decades beforehand. 

"Jehan, I... I do not understand."

Jehan seemed to be missing the point that it was his _brother_ who had truly caused the death of his wife-to-be. No... Claude would not have resorted to that if that wretch hadn't been with her. She would have just gone to prison, even perhaps tasted Claude's mercy and be set free. For a perpetual moment, Jehan wondered if Florika had been unfaithful. There was no feasibility that _he_ had spawned that changeling; that it was part of _him_. It made him feel nauseated. His dread condensated into an effervescent rage, his vengeance having been tampered with and embroidered in the worst way possible. Madellaine instantly knew she had made a mistake, though she didn't know what his reasoning was behind her husband allegedly being... being his son.

"You don't understand? Florika was... she was my lover! And she died... protecting him..."

Poor Madellaine had been unknowingly shuddering. She knew what this meant... and it terrorized her down to the very marrow of her bones. This unpredictable man could be calm one moment and furious another, the whiplash of tone never failed to startle her out or her ghostly skin. It seemed her wedding ring got tighter on her slender finger, and she almost feared it would sever through the skin. It must have been because of her fingernails gouging low into the fabric of her overdress, nearly dismantling the susceptible threadwork. She had made a grave mistake. She had put her husband's life in even more jeopardy... if only she could have kept her big mouth _shut_.

But instead of another upheaval of dissonant fury, Jehan clearly stood up from his seat and leisurely staggered his way over to the door of the compartment. Madellaine's doe eyes were hacking him apart, her fear transmitting a twinge of satisfaction and... almost pity, deep down in whatever was left of his humanity. Hand on the cold metal of the doorknob, he turned his head to face her, his expression saturated with dislike. Just as he was about to speak, the pair overheard the dim squabble amongst the ship's crew, the eloquence of the captain's voice buffering through the unsound air like feeble string.

"The Queen has returned, long live the Queen!"

And just up ahead, after days upon days of murky virescent tides of nothing, ranging as far as the Earth seemed to go, Madellaine saw it. She saw the beginnings of her rule, her kingdom. Her people.

Little speckles of forest verdure rose up from the seashore, popping up from the skyline, and her breath chipped. Jehan's expression had become... void. He wasn't sure whether to be confounded or... rapturous. He could be king in a mere fortnight and yet again... 

The wicked incubus, Claude humming in his ear, the voices all collectively conceded that he had to kill his own son. He had cost Jehan too much. He had been the cause of the death of his brother, his lover, taken his only chance to become king without having to shed any blood. He had to kill Quasimodo to be at peace, or else he'd be driven so far up the wall, he'd never come down. Jehan had to kill him, or Claude would never rest. Florika would never find her eternal peace.

Jehan was already going to kill this man if Madellaine refused to do what he demanded, but... He'd wait until after he forced her to wed him. That way, she'd be united with him under the discriminations of the Catholic church and he could get the vendetta he wanted in one fell swoop. He had to _kill_ him regardless, no matter if he was his son or not. For himself. For Florika.

For Madellaine. 

* * *

It took some time for the princess to get back her land legs. She didn't know if it had been her stress or her months on the sea, but she couldn't seem to walk right without grabbing onto Hildegard for stability, who grabbed onto Tilde, who grabbed onto Agathe. Jehan seemed to have simply... vanished, which bothered Madellaine. His stillness in tone had bothered her as well. Jehan's sentiments were polar contradictions and there was no in-between. It was a gamble every time she heard him speak and she felt like she was treading on eggshells in his presence. She had no idea what he would do. If he killed Quasi then... what did she have to live for?

"Miss Agathe...?" Madellaine whispered in her windy voice.

"Yes, your majesty?"

"Where... where's Jehan?"

"He seemed... rather upset about something," Agathe murmured, "But I haven't seen him since we arrived."

"Fantastic..." Madellaine's voice was sodden with sarcasm and kissed with a tablespoon of apprehension.

"Welcome home, Della!" Tilde giggled, hopping onto the tips of her shoes so she may reach her queen's height.

"Della?" Hildegard muttered unobtrusively. Her diaphanous timbre went nearly undetected, but Tilde had exceptional hearing skills despite her poor attention span. 

"Ynow, MaDELLAine!" she giggled, almost obnoxiously more strident than was necessary.

"Tilde, you musn't address the princess in such a manner," chided Agathe.

Though, notwithstanding Madellaine's uneasiness and her miseries over what was ahead of her, was a little haimish smile, whatever was omitted of her surviving mirth.

"It's quite alright. I've never been called Della before."

"Well, now you have!" Tilde hopped liberally. 

Madellaine, though she had never quite had the energy as Tilde when she was younger, almost felt as if she missed having such little worry, being light on her feet... being held by her husband. She missed him so much... her bones wept dry tears for him, her body felt listless without their embrace against the very world. She missed his eunoia, his intricate works of art, his magnetic hot-wire touch, the loving beckon of his heartbeat, his confirmations every night of his redamancy for her... She had never been very skilled at artistry, but her husband could do nearly _anything_. She missed their eternal nights sitting beneath a quilt of stars trimming upon his modest work-table. She could watch him carve for hours. 

She even missed their quarrels... she just ached to be with him, no matter the price. 

She wanted to be his little lark, just as he had told her so long ago.

* * *

_"There she is! Madellaine!"_

_"The Queen of Corinthia! She's returned!"_

_"Long live the Queen!"_

_"Madellaine, Madellaine! Your majesty!"_

_"Oh, our beautiful queen! There she is!"_

It was almost... too real, the way she was being addressed. Deep in her veins she knew it was correct, that she was their queen, but to hear her subject's cries of joy as she was escorted by her ladies-in-waiting and what seemed like a swarm of royal guards, was like an out of body experience. She was truly home, she truly had a purpose in this world, her name would be inscribed on stone and paper for years to come. But whether she was portrayed as a just queen or a vile one was up to her. The quiddity of her situation had too many layers, bolts of suffocating crowds hoping to crane a glimpse of her, the absence of the belamour she loved, being blackmailed and held captive by a deranged sociopath... it sucked her blood dry. She felt overwhelmingly solivagant, though there was barely an inch in front of her feet for her to walk without another human presence threatening to trip her. Her cordiform bodice revealed a little too much, and it ashamed her, but it was what Jehan wanted her to wear...

Agathe sensed her jitters and gently reached down to touch the princess's trembling hand. She jumped in shock at first, but she seldom refused such affection in her life when she didn't have it. She locked onto the woman's palm as if her life depended on it. She ticked her tongue in distaste, knowing Madellaine's gown had not been her choice. Since Jehan was nowhere in sight, Agathe removed her woolen cape accenting her turtleneck lace regalia and clipped it over the girl's shoulders.

"Here, love, you look freezing," she breathed, and Madellaine hugged her hand tighter in gratitude. It almost felt as if she had whatever a mother was supposed to be beside her, and it melted her vitals into gelatin.

"Thank you..."

"God save the queen..." Agathe susurrated, and Madellaine pretended she hadn't heard, instead nestling further into the borrowed cape as the tip of the palace which cut against the heavens came into view.

She felt her heartbeat in her very shoes.


	14. Chapter Fourteen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright, so there I was, reading the comments for 'On the Top of the World.'
> 
> AND SOMEONE CALLED ZIPZAPZOP COMMENTED SOMETHING PRICELESS.
> 
> 'Gargoyles: Say something!  
> Quasimodo: I- er... It's nice? The two of us sitting?  
> Quasimodo: mentally WELL THAT WAS SMOOTH, YEAH THAT WAS SUPER PIMP-'
> 
> I'VE FOUND MY PEOPLE!
> 
> I will actually draw Quasi's SQUIP. I'LL DO IT.
> 
> bUt jOsiE i dOnT tHiNk bMc iS aNyThiNg LiKe-  
> SHUSH
> 
> George Salazar would be a perfect Quasi! His voice is just too perfect.

Constellations of worry aligned the Corinthian harbor as its unsuspecting prince-consort reached its brink. The sun glared into his cobalt irises and he cringed, squinting his eyes as close as he could so that he may see better. Esmeralda, her onyx colored hair tied into a sleek updo, felt her hand squeeze and realized that her friend was hanging onto her for dear life. 

"Quasi..." she whispered, "You're shaking."

"I'm..." his gaze faltered just as his balance did, "I'm scared. What if... what if he's hurt her...?"

Esmeralda pursed her lips, sighed out a passion of her stress, and brushed a motherly hand over her still unshowing child. She had sent word to her husband asking for him to meet them in Madellaine's kingdom, though she hadn't been in Paris long enough to receive his response. She knew, though, that Phebous would turn on his heels and go as fast as he possibly could once he got her message. She knew that birdsong had carried his urgency to her once the Sun God's gentle breeze cooled her overheated skin. Oh, how thrilled he'd be once she told him that they were to be a family... Quasi himself, though he was wracked with anxiety over his wife's well-being, had thought it curious that he would be an honorary uncle. He was happy for them, truly, but he just couldn't focus long enough on anything but his wife.

His wife, who, God willing, was on this very soil he set his shoes on, silt sinking under his pressure. 

"Hey..." Esmeralda tucked his hair from his eyes, "She's going to be fine. I can almost sense it. Don't you worry."

Quasi tried to smile, but he couldn't seem to do it, so it came out more like a bittersweet grimace. 

"Almost like old times, huh, Quasi?" she tried, encouraging her legs to carry her forward with the trade winds. 

"Yeah..." Quasi remembered very clearly the two of them, he and his closest friend, against everyone, outcasts on the top of the very world. Before Madellaine came along, he would shamefully admit he had fallen in love with the Romani woman, or whatever he thought was love at the time. He realized fully after the way Madellaine arrested and took hostage his very heart and affections that his care for Esmeralda hadn't been any healthier than Claude's had. He saw her as the first person to ever speak to him without a look of disgust on their face, an angel who had saved him, an all-knowing being who had to care for him, had to love him...

He realized that she had truly fallen for Phebous in the end because of how highly he sized her up, how he had built palaces from her words of affection and kissed the ground she walked on. Phebous saw her as a woman, not an angel, not a demon, and that was what she really needed. 

In the end, Quasi knew he had never gotten close to loving anyone the way he loved Madellaine. He'd die for Esmeralda, sure, but he'd go to hell and back for Madellaine, die every gruesome death in Satan's manual for her. Esmeralda was his sister, really, his family. She looked after him in ways Madellaine could not, like a big sister who was not afraid to tell him what he was doing incorrectly but still loved him nonetheless. But Madellaine... she was the rhythm of his heart, the current of his blood, the source of his celebration. She understood him, understood the pain of the world just as he did. She was just as self-conscious as he, just as imaginative and creative, and she was the only person who believed him when he divulged the truth of the gargoyles who had spoken to him all his life. Something made him think that she, too, had her own gargoyles, whatever they were, wherever they had made their debut.

The honeyed fragrance of ocean tears followed them in every step they took. They knew they were in Sector 4, the outskirts of the kingdom, and they had to find some form of transportation that could take them to Madellaine. If she was indeed instated as queen as most whispers had emphasized, then he hadn't much to fear, right?

* * *

The first thing that crossed Madellaine's mind was how unusual the architecture of the palace was.

How curious that the structure was constructed along a precipitous cliff that mounted over the palace itself. It looked like something out of a fantasy tale, towering alabaster terraces and turrets overlapped one another, and it almost seemed like a pinpoint more of gravity upon the building would bring it down, tumbling hundreds of feet down the grand cliff to meet the acute minerals below. Gilded plates capped each column, trimmed along the many balconies and along the several lavish windows for royal archers. It had a metallic luster to it, just like the rest of the kingdom. Just like its queen, who felt her cerulean eyes melting into the dwelling where she had been born... 

She thought she'd be excited, but... she couldn't get her mind off of Jehan. Why did he have to _ruin this_ for her? 

The very reality that she'd be marrying _(ugh... marrying...?!)_ her abrasive father-in-law made her want to get sick. _Everywhere_.

She drank down her endeavor, which was bothersome, but manageable enough to allow her to watch her step. As she progressed to the gate, she saw marble and alabaster statuettes scowling down at her, passing judgment upon her and her glistening wedding ring, which she feared would be melted down or scrapped in the near future. Perhaps she'd hide it from Jehan, so she'd always have Quasi within her sights, even if she never saw him again. The turrets gave an opulent enamel as they clashed with the sun's dwindling waves, and it made Madellaine feel so small. She thought _Notre Dame_ had been huge... 

Then she saw the flag, such a civilized flutter in the wind as the sun emblazoned it from behind, throwing an apocalyptic looking shadow of radical accountability over her slender form. It seemed to be modeled after the hair colors of each sector, save for 3, The stripes being blonde, strawberry-orange, and brown. In the center was a mandala of sorts, a black and white fish encircling one another in the center, orbiting beside two pillars of black lattice that flanked each side of the emblem. Effigies of terror muttered in her ear as she crossed the border between peasant girl, a humble wife, to a princess, a queen of the land she set her sights on in her most avid dreams. 

_Quasi would be pissing himself right about now..._ she mused, taking in a lungful of fresh air and letting it out as calmly as her trembling lungs would allow.

Suddenly, haunting fanfare vaporized through the palace, pressing on as the queen tried to stride with refinement, though she knew it wasn't her forte. Flanked by troops of guards, she finally was greeted by the entrance, as well as several page boys shouting that the queen was finally home, she was home at last... Madellaine did not feel at home here. She missed the stone fortification that was her endeared husband's tower, which she had grown to consider her own sanctuary just as much as he did. 

The dauphine heard Tilde squeal excitedly, and she stirred closer to Agathe, who still had a calming anchor on her hand. Hildegard was correcting her wanton hair rippled about messily in the draft, and Tilde was practically skipping in her excitement. 

"Agathe...?" Madellaine whispered softly.

"It's alright," she assured, tucking a stray shred of her short hair out of her cobalt optics and behind her ear, "Just follow me. I know what to do."

Madellaine focused on the velvet carpet beneath her feet. The many luminescent braziers nestled in gilded perks along the wall cast a discordant umbra along the crowd of guards, ladies-in-waiting, and of course, the queen. Her shadow was misshapen due to the light emanating from all directions. She felt wrapped in the sunset-colored fire which ostentatiously bathed her amidst its soothing luminosity. It quite complimented her locks of stardust, the plumes hiding her hyperactive ears from the sights of those around her. The next thing she knew, and for the life of her she couldn't remember the process from the hallway to her dressing room, she was being pampered by several servants in front of a slightly cracked mirror protected by a sleek linen baldachin. 

And she saw Jehan's face in the reflection behind her.

"Jehan..." she whispered, her shock enslaving her amber voice.

"Princess," he bowed reverentially before approaching her, "I know our last encounter was... tense. You must forgive me. I was... in shock."

She slit her eyes, her lashes cupping the credulous azure irises. Is that what he was apologizing for? Really?

"Um..." she looked at her attendees, and then back at him. She wanted to reproach him, but she needed to make sure nobody heard her bickering with her... _fiance_.

"Leave us," he commanded, and the ladies disappeared as briskly as he had said it.

The taciturnity in the room was refreshing after such a bustling day. Madellaine grounded her arms, stepping back slightly when he neared her. Of course, he had to ruin her only window of stainless silence.

"Madellaine," he sighed, restlessly scratching his bicep, "I hope you aren't cross with me. It would spoil our big day."

"Why do you speak to me as if I am your friend?" she condemned, steering her back at him so she didn't have to look at his _disgusting_ face.

"Look, I am not going to pretend I love you," he chided, "But we must at least like each other for this to work, isn't that right?"

"I have no desire for this to _work_ , Jehan. I will be your wife, but in name only. If I knew any better, I'd just leave the matter. I could never _like_ anyone such as you."

Jehan had no idea why her words pricked his heart like a juvenile schoolgirl's jeers. He conceded that he had done her wrong, he knew exactly what he was doing. But hearing that tone of her voice sent his tremors to war with one another. He settled on remaining calm, seeing how his upheavals of violence could mark up her face in an unsavory way and cause the people to whisper.

"That is _correct_ , Madellaine, you will be my wife," he hummed, " _Like_ me or not."

"No comment."

The atmosphere buttered, and Jehan made to take his leave, but the obnoxiously glorious voice of his sister vanquished the chamber, making him clench his eyes tight in irritation. His fiancee was in for it now.

Cheek pinching, embraces, and constant patting of her hair. Bellamy had finally arrived to give the gift of her presence to such an unsuspecting young woman.

_"Ohhh! Your Majesty! Oh, you've returned!"_

* * *

"Christ," Quasimodo whispered, "It's so quiet here."

"It doesn't help that I have no idea where we even are," Esmeralda supplemented, craning her head around the modest cramped alleyways, rows upon rows of run-down taverns and time-rotted cottages. Everything seemed absorbed by decades of poverty, even the color wasn't present, the sun seeming to favor taking its crudity out upon Sector 4 buildings, citizens, and any plant it so happened to encounter. Their skin felt leathered by the tyrannical heat, and no cloud, tree, or roof allowed even a moment of shade to cool them. Quasi's eyes were so sprained from lassitude that he thought his optic nerve would snap in two like feeble twine.

It seemed that people collapsed in the streets from their hunger, from the ruthless celestial body so furious that their bodies could no longer take the torment. Most, as Esmeralda would attest, having been a mortician's assistant for a short while to earn some coins, were not in fact dead, just lying there, simmering under the sun, and there was truly nothing either of them could do about it. They would get them help, but they didn't know where help _was_. But the few that indeed had succumbed to the eternal branches of Death's embrace, sent a foul redolence wafting through the narrow alleyways and sloppily bricked roads. Esmeralda nearly got sick dozens of times, but once they approached the first left turn, they saw a carcass that had definitely been there for a good while...

Slimy jaundiced pallid flesh melted off of whatever was left of their bone, flies, maggots, and other disgusting insects nuzzling themselves in what used to be a human being to attempt to prolong their stunted lives. Quasi had to look away, covering his nose, while Esmeralda got sick all over the road.

"What the bloody hell?" she gagged, "EUGH! _Why?!"_

"I... Madellaine mentioned something to me that... that Jehan had told her. This part of the country is severely impoverished..." Quasi had a stomach of iron, and so he was able to depress any urge to regurgitate enough so that the discomfort was only internal, "This person must have been... mmnh... _hungry_."

"Who has been in charge here?!" Esmeralda was downright outraged, her empathic heart bleeding out into her hot-tempered words.

"Certainly nobody _good_..."

He grabbed onto the woman's hand and escorted her away from the corpse as vigorously as he could, so that she may not get sick again. Their faces were overly garnished with cynical disgust, pure sardonic repugnance, and if Quasi had been unsure about Corinthia's need for Madellaine before, any last conception of it would have dissolved right there. He knew they needed her. This couldn't be _happening._

They walked and walked, trying to wring their minds like filthy sponges to get the image out. That person probably had a name...

"Quasi?"

"Yeah?"

"I'm hungry."

_How could she possibly be hungry after seeing that?_

"Perhaps there's a tavern nearby that will take French currency."

"I hope so. My baby's hungry, too, I can feel it."

Quasimodo nodded meekly, striving to keep close to her, wondering all sorts of things about his wife's well being. He hadn't meant to imagine her dead like that man they had passed by, but his worrisome cognizance did it anyway. 

Every single musing of his wife all strung back to one indivisible philosophy. He knew this in his vitality, and it made his craving to be there for her even more profound than before. He understood that one thing was for sure.

Mads _definitely_ had her work cut out for her...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> https://www.deviantart.com/lolthisisstupid/art/--870276839
> 
> by the wayyy this is the flag of the kingdom. I didn't make it myself, credit to the site is given in the description :)


	15. Chapter Fifteen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello, my guys, gals, and non-binary pals, my girls, gays, and theys, lovely to post again!
> 
> I've made a personality quiz and I'd love for you to take it! Quasi, Mads, and Esme are in it :) It would be a huge favor if you could share your results. It would also help me get to know you guys a little better, too!
> 
> https://www.quotev.com/quiz/13561849/Which-One-of-My-Favorite-Characters-are-You

"Ah! M-Madame!"

Madellaine truly did not like being touched anymore, not that she particularly _fancied_ it before Jehan had taken his debauched indulgences out on her, but she was apt to either abide by it or disregard it as best as she could withstand to. She perhaps could tolerate a humble specter of Agathe's hand over her's to calm her, as she was a woman and Jehan had never really touched her hands when he had violated her.

What strongly disquieted her was her newfound desire to prevail as a celibate woman, even with the glisten of her husband's wedding ring on her finger. Madellaine and Quasimodo didn't have a particularly _annual_ carnal relationship, but as husband and wife, they were bound to be intimate when the right times came, when the dynamic hysteria of their eye contact and provocative discourse proved to be too much for the two. She knew that even thinking of coital touch made her feel ailed, made her verdant in the cheeks, and agitated to no end.

How would he react, _if the stars aligned and she could escape and return back to her husband,_ if he wanted intimacy, but she was unable to reciprocate it? Would that render her ineffective as a wife, a woman? She knew no matter what, she'd always follow the strings back to Jehan's territorial imprint on her psyche, and any lewd approach of any man's hands on her, even her own husband's, would require her to think of her father-in-law. Would that mean... she would never be a mother?

Never grow a _family_ with Quasimodo?

Quasi was definitely not the adulterous type, so... was he to be neglected in bed, bereaved of his passion to be a father, then, going forward if she were unable to perform? Would he lose his concupiscence for her? His overall attraction, in the worst synopses she managed to concoct? Or was she so mad as to even _think_ he would leave her over something that she could not control? She _ardently_ hoped the latter was true. 

As her fiance's sister essentially bombarded her with an overly snug embrace, it felt like her skin had ruptured in apiaries of unrestrained and relentless stinging when Bellamy's hands laved over her the dip in her lower backbone, inadvertently, but still enough to make Madellaine squirm a bit. 

Jehan locked one hand on Bellamy's shoulder and one on Madellaine's placidly guiding the two women apart. Madellaine's heart pulsated in a disorderly tempo rooted within her congested chest cavity when she felt his flavorless touch on her and not so obviously shifted away. She rolled her tongue over the roof of her mouth, waiting for him to explain this woman's presence.

"H-Hello..." Madellaine waved, quite lamely, "Are you L-Lord Jehan's mother, by any chance? You look quite like him, madame."

"Good heavens no, child!" she laughed quite pointedly, "I am not _that_ old, you know, dear. I'm his half-sister, Bellamy, and your temporary governal antecedent."

Madellaine was not as well versed in vocabulary as she would have liked to be, and given that she only scarcely remembered complex Gaelic, she cocked her head to the side, but was too pusillanimous in nature to ask for a more basic translation. Though she did recognize the name, and she exhaled a gust of relief that she didn't have to look like an imbecile while awkwardly scraping for clarity.

The radiant grin that Lady Bellamy brandished was absolutely absconded from any sort of joy Madellaine thought she had ever seen, and she arched her brow slightly.

"A-Ah... forgive me, madame, and I thank you for your service while I was away," said the younger woman, and she dipped her head in a reverent manner.

"Oh, I would do anything for a future sister-in-law, my dear," Jehan had to swat his sister's eager hand away from pinching the young royal's cheeks.

The coloration of her flesh blistered an interesting shade of pink, and she looked to Jehan for backward guidance. Had he really disclosed their engagement so quickly?

"Ah, I hadn't known he had spoken of our... engagement yet," the words tasted like venom to her, and she had to stop herself from gritting her teeth.

"Of course I have, love," Jehan snaked an arm around her waist, and it took every fiber of her willpower not to shove him away and cause a scene, "Why, I'd proclaim our love from the rooftops."

_Ugh! Ugh, disgusting! What a complete dimwit. An absolute morosis! Oh, I cannot wait until my husband gets ahold of you for this..._

"Oh... How sweet," she smiled at him, trying to feign a state of tranquility, though she had to thank her God that it worked. She had an inkling that he wanted her to lie through her _fucking teeth_ to this woman, who had taken care of affairs for her so graciously in her absence. 

"Oh, what darling little lovebirds! I hadn't thought he'd be able to sway your heart so quickly," Bellamy gushed, eyes brimming with her incapacity to pluck up social cues and basic conduct. Of course, she knew Madellaine had beforehand been wed, and that was the vengeance she had spoken of to her brother the last she had seen him, to woo the girl and make her aspire to make _him_ her king instead of the man who had killed their brother. She truly hadn't discerned the extent Jehan would take in order to lift the crown, and reasonably it was best left unsaid. It would abolish the woman's heart, honestly, and would defile Jehan's plans.

Madellaine could only muster a small nod, unable to form any intelligible utterance of a lie, which she believed would disgrace her morals after the consideration being shown to her by Bellamy.

She and Jehan were twenty-years Madellaine's seniors, but in terms of morality, Madellaine felt seventy feet taller than each of them, though Bella didn't seem to understand what _truly_ was going on. There was an underlying knowing tone in her filmy, richer-than-gold voice, and her sterling eyes prickled with the mischief of a folkloric volatile Roman demigoddess, but that was just it.

_Demi-_ goddess. Half-truth. She didn't seem to have been notified of her abduction, and it almost seemed as if she genuinely believed the two to be in love.

_Disgusting._

"Have you two kissed yet?" she drawled out teasingly.

"U-Uh..."

Madellaine would not soon forget the shill resonance of him shrieking in her face to be still under his ministrations, as he swelled up her lips and nearly drank her tongue whole in a stringent kiss one night on the ship. Granted, it had proceeded no further than that, but that had been the second time they had kissed. That and...

"We have," Jehan's hand was advancing way too low down a small patch on Madellaine's vertebrae, and if she didn't have such a wiry handle on her primal reflexes, Jehan would have a broken wrist by now.

"Do it!"

Jehan's eyes stabbed into Madellaine's skin, (she swore she saw crimson specks swimming around in his rather disgusting brown eyes) and she sensed the malevolent blood heating her chilled hide, but she was thankfully prompt to come up with a stratagem. 

"Perhaps we will wait until the wedding, to make it more special, Jehan," she just had to pretend she was talking to Quasi so that her speech didn't betray her vulnerable trust in it to stay unsalted and cogent.

"Fine, then, my dear," he released his grip on her, and so did she release her own breath, hitched and canted in an unpleasant manner, "Bellamy, fetch Maud for me, will you? She will get the princess donned in her finest corset and ballgown for supper and then dancing."

"Maud?" Madellaine whispered, not wanting unfamiliar eyes on her unclothed form, "Um, Jehan...? Can I perhaps request for Agathe instead?"

"Yes, your majesty," Bellamy chided, shaking her head, "But, remember this. Queens do not request or beg. They _command_."

* * *

Quasi genuinely had never seen Esmeralda eat so ferociously. She sort of reminded him of that one stray hound that Madellaine had brought back up to their tower on the first winter since they had fallen in love. It was before they had been married and were only beginning to traverse about the perquisites of their courtship. She and her lover had fed the poor emaciated thing and it ate as though the contents of his little wooden plate would vanish if he didn't eat fast enough.

Though he figured he understood, knowing that she was sustaining both her and the baby, and if he were honest, he felt truly lucky to be a man. After all, he had seen his wife writhing in pain due to her menstrual cycle. The poor girl's pain would only stop if he managed to get her pregnant, which truly wouldn't make it any more tolerant with the swelling and the kicks, the cravings, and the aches.

... and God only _knew_ the hellish endeavor of childbirth. 

"What?" Esmeralda asked midway through a wolfish bite through a piece of bread.

"Nothing," Quasi looked off to the side, trying to hide the ghosts of what was left of his smile.

"Lord, I've never been this hungry," Esme muttered.

"Well, you have two mouths to feed now," Quasi half-smiled. He couldn't help but try and imagine what a fusion between his two closest friends would be. Would he have Esmeralda's beautiful dark hair? Phebous's irenic demeanor? 

"I was thinking about the name Zephyr," Esmeralda offered, "Perhaps Zany, you know after Phebous's strange sense of humor."

Quasi snorted rather ungracefully, "I'm glad I'm not the only person to notice that. But I think Zephyr is a beautiful name, for a girl or a boy. Much better than Quasimodo, anyway..."

"Damn Claude..." she muttered, "You know, I'd rename you if I could. Oliver, perhaps, would be a suitable name for you. Xavier, maybe..."

"I've wondered what my name would have been if I were normal," he tilted back in his creaky wooden chair, "But since I usually just go by Quasi, I suppose being named 'half' is fine."

Esmeralda giggled a little, "Do you remember when Phebous and Madellaine got drunk and kept calling you Momo?"

"Yes!" his cheeks were lapped up by a ridiculous-looking salmon zest, "I don't know, I think it was quite cute..."

"You think everything Madellaine does is cute," she tittered, and he allowed his eyes to take a voyage to the heavens.

"She's my angel... and I will see her again, God willing..."

Before she had a simple pulse of time to formulate a heartfelt rejoinder, a rather obnoxious-sounding young man squealed out from the middle of the small French-town tavern.

Many French immigrants had settled near the harbor and made their own little city for their own currency and language so they may feel more at home. It reeked of booze and indulgence, though, and that was probably why Quasimodo didn't want to eat.

"The Queen has returned! Long live the Queen!"

Quasi had never gasped so dramatically. It was something that took on the likeness of the stage-plays he would see with his wife and friends when they had bounteous time on their hands. So... she was home safe. She was at the palace! She was instated as queen, so she wasn't to be harmed any longer! Oh, thank God!

"The queen?" Esmeralda quoted, rising up from her seat, "What do you know of her?"

"I am glad you asked, young mademoiselle!" the charismatic, slightly tipsy teenage boy gave a piddling jaunt, "Princess Madellaine and her fiance have finally come home. If she is anything like Sadie, things in these parts may finally take a turn for the better!"

"Fiance?" Quasi whispered through the shallow air. No... was Jehan trying to tamper with their marriage...? Or... or had Madellaine never actually gone missing? Had she _left_ him? For Jehan...? Had he failed her?

No... no, Madellaine loved him. There wasn't a chance that she could have done this... And the blood! 

But... who knew if it had been Madellaine's blood? It wasn't Jehan's home, it was a rental, so it could very well have been a different crime, a different innocence lost to the wind.

She was _engaged_ to him. Why? How could he force her to say yes? He certainly couldn't harm her, she was the queen! Had he lost her...? Had he offended her when he had gotten cross with her over her heritage? No... no this couldn't be.

"Yes, sir! Tell me, why do you keep your hood up like that? I can't see you!"

"I..." Quasi's mind was abraded over what seemed like a bottomless cavity of his vitals, and his head floated with the hatred and horror of a mile-long bee swarm.

"Uh," Esmeralda carved in abruptly before the crowd could browbeat the poor man into lowering his protective hood, "What can we do so we may meet this queen? Pay our respects?"

"There's a carriage service that runs by here every hour or so. Pay them enough money and they'll take you to the palace."

* * *

Madellaine hadn't ever known how to dance. Well, not _suitably_ , for her status, anyway. She and Jehan stood motionlessly alongside one another watching the simple-folk dancing in perfect unison on the polished floor. It almost looked slippery, and she didn't comprehend how they could fly so airlessly; as if their torsi and their feet were made of paper. She swallowed what tasted like the sour sediment of the apple she had consumed in her chambers before supper, stirring away from her fiance for a moment when she caught sight of Hildegard's expression. She knew that look.

When she lined her eyes up with the young woman's, she had anticipated seeing a man on the other apex of her line of sight, but instead... She was looking at Maud. 

"Hildegard?"

"Ah...! Y-You're majesty!"

"No need for that, now," Madellaine tried a smile, "Why are you looking at Maud?"

"I just really like her dress," she tilted her head so that she may survey every last thread of the lace ornamenting the woman's body, "I think it suits her."

"Oh," Mads shrugged, guiding her cup of wine to her lips, "I can have it made for you. After all, you are a lady in waiting of mine as of now."

"You'd... do that?"

"Sure."

Hildegard was envious of how shimmery her complexion was... Was that it? Jealousy?

"I'd appreciate that," she smiled, "You've... you've given me a reason to smile."

Suddenly, Hildegard saw something quite numerous. A glisten of armor in the queen's hooded lids, a spark of gold against a chilled pelagic cerulean.

And then, Tilde could be overheard loud and clear, the scintilla getting much much closer to them, so much so that Madellaine even noticed the solasta promenade of light coming towards her. 

And then, the princess caught sight of such a familiar orphic face that she felt her hopelessness webbed up in her organs spill into her feet. A face that belonged to a Sun-God. _Her_ fraternal Sun-God.

And perhaps her only _hope_.

"A last-minute arrival! Captain Phebous de Châteaupers, a French war hero who fought on this very soil, can you believe it?!" Tilde cried.

_"Madellaine?"_

_"Phebous?!"_

"Oh my GOD! Madellaine, you're alright!"

Though his armor was chilled from the moon having now claimed the heaven sky, she embraced him so tightly that she nearly began to weep. Her only hope... she finally had someone who could help her! A familiar face! God, someone who understood her predicament!

"Phebous! Oh, I missed you so much! I'm so glad you're here!"

"I had a feeling I'd find you here, Adella!"

"Well, I see they've already met," Tilde murmured to herself, "Perhaps I'll go get some marzipan!"

"Oh my God!" she laughed in relief, perhaps for the first time in such long weeks, and she felt his arms shielding her from the world's harms, just like a big brother's would.

"Let me see your face," Phebous said sternly, "I want to see if that bastard left any marks on you."

Madellaine hiccupped, "N-No, I'm fine Phebous... Honest... though I have much to discuss with you."

He scrutinized her pallid complexion, drinking down his sizzling firestone of violence and allowing it to fester in his gut with the rest that had pooled up in a firelake of malevolence. He had to remind himself that he'd get Jehan later. Now, he needed to talk to his sister.

"Then let us talk. I don't suppose Quasi or Esmeralda are here?"

"No?" she whispered, "Why would they be? And why are you here, for that matter? How did you find me?"

"If only you knew, Madellaine, just how much Quasi misses you right now..."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note: Hildegard is not particularly sapphic, nor is she truly aware of it, but she does find herself more pre-disposed to look at women than she does men. If any are puzzled by her sexual orientation, I say she's mostly aromantic/asexual like myself. But if she did have the normal dose of desire in her for a relationship, I'd say she would definitely be open-hearted to anyone, even a woman, though this would probably be in a time period when it was even known and heard of for this to be normal. All hypothetical really, lol!


	16. Chapter Sixteen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter took so long because I wrote the whole thing (it was very long mind you) and my computer died and all of my progress wasn't saved! I had to write it all over again! Ahhhh!  
> I'll admit, though, it was on me for not saving, lol.
> 
> A really good friend of mine just joined AO3. I was hoping you could check out their page and maybe their stories! Very talented writer. You'll fall in love with their characters!
> 
> https://archiveofourown.org/users/Piichy_San/pseuds/Piichy_San
> 
> This is a long-shot, but has anyone seen Bride/Daughter of Discord? For some odd reason, Madellaine and Quasi remind me of DisneyFanatic's Fluttershy and Discord. I mean, they're really nothing alike, but I just get a sweet little childhood vibe when I compare their relationships. 
> 
> Also, new art yay! Been a while lmAO  
> https://www.deviantart.com/lolthisisstupid/art/my-babies-870924312

"Pheobus, where _is_ he?"

Loquacious Pheobus had finally forsaken his true character. Would it do her good in this time of peril to tell her he was coming? Would it comfort her or send her into a tizzy of anxiety? After all, the girl had been named after the word 'maudlin', ridiculously sentimental, and admittedly she _was_. Any fleeting spasm of ambiguity in her mind about the ones she loved would rot her from the inside out. Surely Quasi's debut wouldn't turn out well with Jehan, and even if he wasn't engaged to the queen, he had the authority to place him behind bars. Madellaine had shared with the soldier everything she had freighted down in her futile hope, the warrant, the kidnapping, the journey back to her homeland. The one thing she left aphasic was the assault upon her. Pheobus hadn't asked, and so as long as he didn't cast uncomfortable queries at her, she had no reason to blatantly lie.

"I don't know."

It wasn't a lie, really. He _didn't_ know.

"How..." she leveled her glittering crown upon its nest of amber, "How did you even find me?"

"Well, Quasi told me everything you told him before you were taken. Afterward, he figured you must be here, so I came."

"Is..." she quietly hoped to herself that her husband wasn't coming for her, but yet the idea didn't frighten her. Seeing him again, she'd risk anything. "Is he coming?"

"I... you got me," he huffed, curling his arms across his chest, "Yes. But I'm here to protect you. Both of you. I promise."

She didn't know how to feel. She didn't want him to be in danger, damn it! Of course, he was coming for her, that was just how he was, even if she forbade it. _Damn him for doing this! What if he gets himself hurt?_

But... despite her desperation to protect him, her heart needily palpitated to just touch his face. She missed his husbandly touch, his expressions of praise, the Parisian apricity rimming his beautifully unusual features... She missed the way his eyes embraced her splendidly. She missed the chime of winsome church bells in the morning, she missed how he'd enduringly wake her before he rang them so he wouldn't alarm her. She missed his wallflower tendencies that she'd admonish him for, how she implored him to drink up more sunshine, how he was getting pale. Seeing him didn't seem too bad after all... Plus, if Jehan murdered him prematurely, he'd have no leverage over her to attain the sovereignty that came with their union. 

If, indeed, that was his only goal. It would have to be; because if she had to walk the earth without her husband, she'd sooner slaughter herself than relinquish to his will. She wondered if Quasi ever fathomed being someone's only reason to live.

"Well, then," she bequeathed his sword, as razor-sharp as the moonlight's luminescent call on the border between heaven and hell. It was much heavier than it looked. "My first act as queen, then, dear friend, will be to give you the power to uphold your promise. Would you be my captain?"

"I thought you'd never ask."

She patted the peak of the metal instrument upon his frizzy golden hair, almost teasingly. Was this even how it was done? She was truly one _bumbling_ royal woman.

Madellaine sheathed the brisk object, not really catching herself speak her thoughts out loud. "Dance with me, Pheobus?"

_Bloody hell. I can't dance._

"You can _dance_ , Madellaine?"

"No, not really."

The room was quite estiferous, and Madellaine had started to regret donning such a heavy gown. She became quite skittish as she danced with Pheobus. She was comfortable in his arms, of course, but she feared she'd make a fool out of herself in front of her subjects by tripping over her uncomfortable shoes and long train. When the older man noticed this, he straightened her toppling tiara on top of her, instructing her to take a deep breath.

He had abraded his waking hours beyond belief over his worry for her. Quasi's ebullition of grief wasn't a good reflection on how Pheobus had dealt with his distress. He kept hope that he'd see this woman again, someone he thought of as his sister, someone that was his family in appearance just as much as spirit. Just looking at the two, one would expect Madellaine to be his twinling. Through his eyes, he saw a little lamb in need of a herd, in need of protection, in need of family beyond courtship. Though Quasi loved her without reason, beyond consequence, he could be too dependent on her for his happiness, and seeing the heartsick bell-ringer so despondent concerned Pheobus and his wife to new heights.

The poor man trembled, he couldn't get one wink of sleep, wouldn't eat one crumb of fluffy bread or good goat cheese that France had complimented them with well. What would happen to Quasi if he outlived her? When their hair harvested silver locks and their motor skills were lost? Would his grief cause the man's death?

"Pheobus?"

"Yes?"

"I miss Quasi so much... Is he really coming?"

"Without a doubt, Adella," he smiled, "You know how he is."

"I just don't know what will happen when he does. I'm scared."

"Look, I promised to protect you and him, Madellaine. You can trust me..."

She inclined her cheek into the nape of his throat and smiled against it, and he felt her tiny emanations slow as he directed the dance, "I'm so lucky to have you here." 

Once more, Madellaine couldn't spot her father-in-law anywhere, absolutely anywhere in the ballroom, and it left her heartbeat to die in the fore permafrost of her trepidation. At least her fear cooled her off amidst the sweltering heat, right? Or was that her imagination at play?

Agathe, who hadn't allowed the two to perfect their dance, tugged at her queen's sleeve. Madellaine separated, almost begrudgingly due to her undying need for some mode of solace and positive affection.

"Your Majesty..." Agathe wouldn't call her by her name unless it was her perquisite to do so, "You have two visitors. They're in the throne room and they're... begging to see you."

"Begging?" Madellaine was dumbfounded, but eventually, she made herself speak further, "Please describe them."

"Red-haired man and a black-haired woman."

Pheobus and Madellaine both felt their hearts wither into their knees, threatening to buckle under the influence of their bodies which felt one hundred pounds more onerous all of a sudden. They feared they'd pick up with the winds like debris if they didn't hold onto each other.

"That's them..." Pheobus whispered. It didn't register in anyone's ears.

"Where are they?" Madellaine desperately ghosted her ringed hand along Agathe's sleeve.

"They're in the throne room, as I've said," Agathe cocked her head like a confused hound, "Why? What shall I do with them?"

"Uh...!"

Madellaine almost requested to have them sent to her chambers, but that would _not_ go over well with Jehan if he found out. If there was one spot she knew Jehan wouldn't be caught dead or alive in, it would have been the prison. He had told her of how rank the odor was down there when he had faced Sarousch. It felt repugnant to even allow these words to transpire, but if she were to protect Quasi and see him without carnage and keep his appearance under his nose, she would have to have them put down there to meet her.

"Have the man taken to the jails, but please be careful with him. Treat him like a guest and do not allow the guards to harm him."

"And the woman?"

"Have her join the ball here with my friend, Pheobus."

* * *

"Quasi? Quasimodo? Please, are you here?"

Madellaine felt her voice draw along her lower eyelids, and every oscillation of sonance her raw throat managed to extract pained her physically. She knew she was bound to weep and smear the kohl that gently slid along her lashes, a pigment used by the ancient Egyptians as a sign of sovereignty and dignity.

"Madellaine? _Madellaine?!"_

 _"Quasi?!_ Where are you _, I can't see you!"_

"Look _down_ , love!"

"Oh my God! Sweet God, Quasi!"

She quickly fumbled with the keys she had coquetted the warden out of with coins, dropping it a few times before finally unbarring her husband's cell.

She stood there. Frozen.

"Madellaine, you're _here!"_

Quasimodo hadn't expected to cry so nimbly as his sore eyes spilled all over his auricomus wife, his beautiful _wife_. 

Neither remembered who had initiated the nearly overwhelmingly tempestuous embrace, but the next thing they knew, they were wailing in one another's arms like children, congealing around each other with every gasp for fresh air. Neither of them could talk, could move. Just cry.

"L-Let me look at you, love...!" Quasimodo wasn't able to breathe properly from the overwhelming, overstimulating relief. 

Madellaine's lips were lacquered with kohl now that she had shed so many sweltering tears, but he hadn't cared. He came in for a kiss and she had to stop herself from sobbing in satisfaction as they closed their gap. He hadn't tasted the makeup, he tasted her. His wife. She still tasted so candied, like a fresh pear.

"Oh, are you hurt? Are you alright?!"

"I-I'm fine, sweetheart..." Madellaine cut off her sentence to kiss him again, though this time much more hastily, "Did the guards hurt you?"

"No, no, darling," his chest rocked with balmy sobs, stroking her summerlike cheek, wanting to feel her against his skin to know this was authentic, that she was no phantom. 

"Oh, I thought I'd never see you again..." she adhered to his vest, sobbing much like a little girl, "It's been so difficult, Quasi... so difficult..."

"What on Earth happened?" he necessitated, "What did he _do_ to you?! Did he hurt you?"

Her words came out in garbled nonsense against his attire, and he couldn't understand a single word she said since she was clasped so intimately to his chest. 

"Say that again, sweetheart, take a deep breath..."

"He violated me...!" Madellaine choked out, "He took me, Quasi, he took me away from you... I thought... I thought..."

His heart was punctured by several wounds, and the frayed edges of each blow converted to glass and shattered, battered and bruised at such confirmations of her torment. His poor wife... his sweetheart, his circulating blood, his everything... 

"Oh, sweetheart..." he cradled her close to him, thumbing away her tears and kissing the crown of her brow, "I know. I know... He is never going to hurt you again, my love."

"He means to kill you Quasi..." 

"I'd love to see him try." 

Their bodies slotted together nicely as they held each other, vespertine moonshine tracing along their features. They had never been isolated from one another for so long.

They weren't about to misuse this moment.


	17. Chapter Seventeen

"So..." Esmeralda's eyes catechized with the sugilite reflection of her skirt, and she allowed it to melt against her husband's sardonyx, loving gaze. "You got here quickly."

"Not any later than you, love," he smiled, keeping firm governance on her waist as they danced to a song they could barely hear.

Esmeralda had decided to sojourn in the ballroom, having not known where in the hell the guards took Quasimodo off to. She had put up quite a fight, screeching and begging for them to leave him alone, but she had been commanded to leave the matter before she was to be cast in her _own_ dank cavity in the wall. She had attempted to be stealthy, though it wouldn't have mattered, really, the palace was barren. When the melodious crescendo of overlapping noble-folk began to spill down the foyer, chattering in a potent tongue she did not understand, she decided to tailgate it to see if she could find any familiar face. Pheobus, Madellaine, anyone... She was so pleasantly surprised to see her knight in shining armor, but she had to hold her tongue about her big news until she could ensure her closest friends' safety.

"What happened to Quasi? D-Did you see him? Is Madellaine okay?"

"I didn't see him, but Madellaine had him sent somewhere where they could talk privately... you know, without that bastard that took her to overhear."

"Please, give me verbatim," she paved her fingertips along his lustered chestplate, "What happened?"

"She hasn't told me everything... But there's a man willing to blackmail Madellaine into marrying him. Something like that. She was crying when she told me, so I wasn't able to understand all of what she was saying. "

"What?" she scoffed, brilliantly expressing every measure of bewilderment ensnared in her lungs, "Seriously? She can't have _two_ husbands. Is this man shit for brains?"

"Well," he had to hold back a laugh at his wife's remarkably uncouth tongue, "Yes, he is. But here's the _problem_... nobody here knows anything _of_ Quasi. He's going to use it to his advantage to wed her."

"If he lays a finger on him..." the cords in her lyre throat vibrated against the circumference of his neck, and her beelike fierceness nearly ruptured right above her thyroid, "On either of them..."

"I wouldn't worry, I think I have a plan... though I shouldn't say anything out loud. Who knows who's listening..."

Her fingernails still dug webs into the cerulean, resplendent material of his underattire, and he had to stroke his hand on the small of her back to get her to calm down.

"Anything else that's new?" he asked, toying with the tufts of sable-colored hair rippled up against his chin.

"Mhm..." her eyelids twitched in her moxie, heartbeat thrumming in every fraction of her that it could, "Pheobus, I'm pregnant."

Pheobus couldn't stand when it was quiet. He downright _loathed_ it. But try as he might, he couldn't get any combination of words out that would express... whatever the hell he was feeling.

"Come again...?"

"Yeah," her leucos, bedazzled grin that accentuated her flawlessly bronzed skin made him nearly fall in love with her all over again... 

" _How_ , Esme?" he cocked his head to the side slightly.

Her pupils contracted, and the brilliant malachite bands of her irises chided him incredulously, "The stork, sweetheart. How do you think?"

"Well, I know that," he chortled, first smoothly, and then it cadenced into full-on liquid pride, rivulets of sparkling tears spindling along the fine cordages of her elegant hair, "We're going to be a family, Esme!"

* * *

* * *

Madellaine's bathic mazarine eyes were fashioned from God's own hand, and so it was a shame when they looked so... terribly frightened. His poor Mads. 

"Love?" he whispered, and the eutony of his delicious voice only stilled the lakes of her shaking, but her heart wouldn't stop pounding. "Talk to me..."

"I'm scared... I'm so scared..." 

"What are you scared of, dear?"

"I'm- hhh..." she had to squeeze out aqueous tears that stung her bitter flesh, and each drip onto the cell floor broke Quasi's heart. Each one. 

"Take a deep breath, okay? You're safe now, dear. You're the queen, you're home. He can't touch you anymore."

"But he _will_..." her lassulus tone reverberated around the misfortunate cavity, "You don't understand, Quasi..."

"Then _help_ me understand, dearest."

He held her with an aeiphathy, and it was a _miracle_ her flesh hadn't been discolored from how tightly he was coiled around her slender torso. His wife was being devoured up inside by molecular parasites, and he wished beyond any star that he could just make it go away. It seemed that with every moment that abraded past, she was being shredded open like cheap linen, and he hadn't a spool of thread to fix it... He could mend the fissures in his beloved bells, he could fix so many oddities, but he couldn't fix _her_. 

It seemed like he couldn't just have any form of irenic contentedness in his life. Flawsome as he was, he had everything he had ever prayed for, everything he never thought he'd ever hold, and yet every single time he unearthed the slightest wave of sunshine, it was always extinguished. _Always._ He always had to be left to pale in the distorted consciousness of his own, and soon there wouldn't be any pigment _left_ for evil to take away from his skin.

It was getting extremely vexatious.

"Quasi... I told you, he means to _kill_ you. They think you kidnapped me. They-they're willing to sign a warrant for your execution and there isn't anything I can do about it, unless I obey him. If I do what he says, he will spare you..."

Quasi had really little to no _regard_ for his life. One would think he would have felt fear instilled in his beating heart, but nothing remained there but concern for his wife. He swept aside her wanton bangs and kissed the crown of her brow, thumbing away her tears, "Sweetheart... what does he want from you?"

What was she to say? How could she tell her own husband she had been engaged to another man? He smelled of petrichor and his eyes were stellar, but it brought her no comfort. It only showed her what she was truly losing. He was like the apricity amongst even the coldest winters, the promise of new life and love, all she ever wanted. Incense of terror leaked from every extremity on her body, and she wondered truly what would have taken place if she _hadn't_ taken that drink.

But honesty was a core value in their marriage. She couldn't lie to him, not to his earnest, respectable face. To kiss him in this situation would be madness, but her basorexia had to be stifled with one small kiss to his luscious cheek. 

"He wants me to be his wife, Quasi."

_His wife..._

_No. Madellaine will never be Jehan's wife. She is my wife! My wife! Damn it, I've waited years for this, and this bastard wants to take it from me?_

_So that's what those tavernites meant. That's why word of her engagement spread like wildfire. He is forcing her to do this._

_What a fool. If he spares me, she becomes his wife. But she cannot be married to two men at once! How will he spare me if he is to wed her? I am her husband, her only husband, as long as I walk this Earth, damn it, and he sure is thick-skulled to not understand that._

_Or... is there something behind the curtains I am not aware of? Is polygamy legal here?_

_No. Madellaine was sent to a Catholic convent and she is a Catholic woman. Her parents wouldn't have sent her to a convent if they didn't follow these rules as well._

_There's no way he could be so stupid. There's gotta be a way for him to win. But how could my wife explain having two links of wedlock? Will he really just slay me without her knowledge? Or is he not a Catholic man?_

_Is there a way on God's green Earth I could make him pay? How can I win this game?_

_How can I fix my beloved?_

"I heard," Quasi rustled, "I understand you're stuck, here. But I am going to do whatever I can to make him pay."

She nibbled at her bottom lip, her chapped skin rubbing chafed under her teeth. It reminded her of something much more... sinister. 

If her husband were to exterminate Jehan, entice any of his blood, then it would be patricide.

"Quasi... there's something else you must know."

"What is it...?"

 _Honesty is integrity._ That was her mantra. Her tongue was bruised from ghosting the words upon his tunic.

"Jehan... he..."

"What is it, love? You can tell me..."

She couldn't perform the action. She couldn't say it. It would be just too... _needless_. _Tasteless._

Murder was murder after all. Blood wasn't thicker than water. Not with the Frollo family.

"I just wanted to say that Jehan can't take my love away from you."

"Nor could he take mine from you, Mads."

Honesty was integrity.

Though they both knew that _wasn't_ what she was going to say.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I saw a comic dub with this dialogue and I might just draw a Quasillaine version lmaooo
> 
> Madellaine: New shirt? I like it!  
> Quasi: Yeah, I got it 50% off.  
> Madellaine: I'd like your shirt better if it were 100% off... ;)  
> Quasi: Huh? Sweetheart, they can't just sell clothes for free-  
> Madellaine: No, that's not what I-  
> Quasi: That's a terrible way to run a business, Mads...


	18. Chapter Eighteen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> y'alls I saw a video of the green m&m lady falling down the stairs and I giggled throughout this entire chapter because I couldn't stop thinking about it. If the tone seems off I'm so SORRY LMAO
> 
> also march! happy march!

All of Madellaine's life, she had wondered what a man's kiss would feel like. 

Moonstruck by his uniqueness and his tender spirit, she knew she ought to be his wife the moment she really knew she loved him.

She was awake bathing under his senses, and it was a shame that her lips couldn't taste his under lukewarm tristful nights and cooled morning air as much anymore.

She remembered what it felt like to first fall ensorcelled when he touched her; when hand-holding fused to sweet embraces and long summer nights spent under blankets, letting loose passion and tension all in each pass of his hands on her. 

He was ignipotent. She was the flame, he was the kindling. She set him licked up in diabolical flame, though the only hellish viewpoint of her blaze was how deeply she had bewitched him.

Quasi knew that after what Jehan had done to his wife, he would have to be physically sensitive to her, and not touch places that he'd normally while they kissed like this. It felt strange that they slotted together that evening as if nothing was awry, as if their lives together weren't on the line, that all odds weren't truly against them. 

"Quasi..." she pulled away from his lips with a small smacking acoustic, and he gazed quizzically at her through hooded eyes.

"Yes, love?"

"I..." her eyes looked cracked like marbles, static, and he offered her the patience he knew she needed, "Can... can we wait...?"

"Wait?" he inquired, voice so smooth, like butter, and she knew she'd devour it if she could, "What do you mean, my love?"

"I-Intimacy, wait... wait to be intimate again? I just..."

"No need to explain, sweetheart, I know..." he leveled over her hair, his limerance apparent within every line and angle of his body.

"Is that okay...? You won't be disappointed?" she whispered in the dark.

"Sweetheart," Quasi nearly laughed, "I didn't marry an outlet for sexual urges. I married a woman, a beautiful girl, whose comfort and spirit I value above all else. Take all the time you need, alright? And if you never feel comfortable with it again, that's fine too."

"Lord God above..." Madellaine felt her breath stutter in wonder, and her heart surged with both pain and pleasure as he kissed away the tears now built up in her swollen eyes, "What have I done to deserve you?"

"All you need do, dearest, is be yourself."

Her next words seemed nugatory, and he cauterized her open confusion with a mystified expression.

"What are we going to do, Quasi?"

He couldn't say. Instead, he closed his eyes and sank against the wall, welding his will and his fortitude to Madellaine and her safety.

Madellaine felt chained. She felt like a marionette puppet, Jehan's puppet. If she revealed to her kingdom her husband, he'd be killed. Jehan could negate it and have him executed for disgrace rendered to the crown. If she defied any of his requests, Quasi would be killed. She didn't want to bury him... No, she couldn't. She'd sooner take her own life than see him in a shallow grave.

But... there had to be proof of her marriage to Quasi somewhere, right?

The... the contracts!

"The contracts!" she squeaked, and her warbled voice glitched somewhat, "Quasi, our marriage contracts! Where are they?"

"Notre Dame, most likely...? Why...?!"

"I can use it against Jehan! I can prove our union!"

Quasi's embers lit up violently and he broke out in blithesome hives, "Of course! Come on, let's go."

"No!" she yelped, almost like a small quail, and he halted, "No. You have to stay here. I won't have you spotted by Jehan, alright?"

Was... was she serious? 

The psithurism of his breath stuttering to an implacable standstill made Madellaine stand and brush the grime from her kirtle. 

"Madellaine, you must be daft if you think I am letting you out of my sights again!"

She sealed her eyes and took a pitiful step away from him, "Quasi, I love you. So I can't lose you. You don't seem to understand how serious this is."

"I am your husband, Madellaine. I forbid you to leave me! Not again, Madellaine! I can't lose you either..."

They reached an impasse, that much Madellaine knew. She relinquished a kiss into his locks, genuflecting before him and grazing her fingers along his cheek.

"I am your wife and your queen. And I forbid you to follow me."

Before he could form a rebuttal, she had already started wandering away, and he was left to call out into the impending twilight of the prison as she locked his cell and absquatulated before she'd hear an earful of his inevitable rage in her ear. 

"Madellaine...! You can't just leave me locked in here, Madellaine! Madellaine! _Madellaine!"_

She heard his ecophobic skreigh flooding each chamber every step of her way, and she had to remind herself why she was doing this. She fiddled with the beadwork against her collarbone and put up her walls again, not allowing herself to weep.

_I'm doing this for your own good, love. You may hate me right now, but at least you'll be around and alive enough to hate me..._

* * *

"Where have you been, Madellaine?"

She dared to lock her eyes on her father-in-law and clacked her azure polar, the marble gateways to her seething hatred, against his very soul.

"Something needed my attention."

"I know you're lying, you little harlot," Jehan hissed at her, enjoining her gaze once more.

"Did I specify what it _was_ , Jehan?" she had to water down her smirk, "And if we are to be a convincing loving royal couple, I'd suggest keeping your tone down in public."

"I'll speak however I wish, girl. Don't think I'll be soft on you like Quasimodo."

 _"Well, at least Quasimodo helps me finish in bed...!"_ she whisper yelled.

Madellaine really was just... playing along, at this point. She knew what she had to do, and that was to gather documentation of her marriage to her husband and proof of Jehan's crimes against her before he demanded her hand. Quasi said that the contracts must have been in Notre Dame. But surely Jehan had thought this over as well, right? He was senseless in morals, but he was very intelligent and cunning, and she knew he was too smart to have overlooked ridding the Earth of any record in his way of the crown.

It was a race, then, and she knew she had to win. Losing wasn't even an option.

"Fine then. I apologize, I got angry... I'm going to work on it."

"Excellent," she offered a curt nod, and they gazed out into the mingling cliques of chorines and dancers once more.

She knew she'd toss and turn that night knowing her husband was in an abstruse, dank cellar, confined to be alone in the cold without so much as a blanket. She knew he wouldn't want to see her after how she deserted him, and it shredded her to pieces to do it, but God almighty, his safety was worth a lifetime of him hating her. 

Perhaps she'd send a guard to his cell with everything he lacked, plus... maybe an epistle sharing her remorse and how much she loved him. He deserved that much.

"Pardon me, Jehan, I'm going to change. I'm cold."

"Bring me back my cummerbund, will you?"

"Sure."

The queen wasn't missed when she strode from the candlelit acronychal merriment, clusters of longanimity and spite baking to a crisp in her cognizance. She was mercifully spotted by Esmeralda and Pheobus.

* * *

_My dearest,_

_I know you're probably calling me a bitch in your mind, love. I understand. But I hope you know I am not going anywhere. I am protected in the palace, but I have a plan. Esmeralda is safe, Pheobus is with me as well. The three of us have talked, and we all agree you're safest where you rest. I hope these accommodations make it better and I will visit you if you so desire. I know what I'm doing. If you know what's best for yourself, you'll trust me. I love you with all I am. Truly._

_You have done too much for me and my regret goes without words. I know you love me, but I cannot see you in a grave. I am of no use to Jehan dead. I will be alright. I promise, sweetheart. You may hate me right now, and I understand wholly, but I'd rather you hate me alive than love me dead._

_In any case, I have faith in our plan and I have faith in God that you will rule beside me someday. I cannot wait to hear the small footsteps of little royals, our little royals someday, on the palace grounds, playing ball outside as we bathe in the sunlight from the window._

_Anyway, all this to say, by summer I hope to stand beside you once more, to finally be able to show you off to the world, my wonderful husband, the love of my life. Everything is going to be alright. I promise. I wish I could kiss your beautiful face._

_You're loved and cherished always, my handsome man._

_Unconditionally yours,_

_Mads._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this was so short XC


	19. Chapter Nineteen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> y'allllll I posted something about two OCs I shipped and I accidentally DELETED IT USDHJHWBKFJUDJ
> 
> so I guess I'll give Joseph/Asenath a try because obviously, my reflexes hate me and my OCs.
> 
> If I see one more old drawing of Joseph as a white man I will actually scream. The same goes for Asenath. Sorry, y'all but Egypt is in Africa and Canaan was in the middle east. She would have maybe been darker than him, but he still would have had pigment in his complexion.
> 
> I think I may have a knack for turning trash ships into full-blown OTPs. Joseph and Asenath's relationship in Joseph: King of Dreams was so stale and unconvincing but I've managed to make it something I like. The same goes for Quasi and Madellaine, actually.
> 
> Also, I've created a one-shot collection for these babes cuz I have so many AU ideas that I can't make into full-blown fics lmao

A falsetto cadence of noxious ferocity escaped a man's lungs, and then his lips. 

Quasi had turned into a powder keg after he had seen the last of his wife. He had _never_ been so upset with her before, never said her elegant name in such a manner that would crack the walls. He drove his fist against the metal bars, letting out a fed-up shout.

_"MADELLAINE!"_

Shimmers of rage and uncontrollable stress placed bidding on the strings in his tendons, and he knew he'd sooner rip this palace apart brick-by-brick before he'd allow her to leave his sight again. How could she defy him? He was her protector! He had worked so hard to convey that to her...

He strained the muscles in the colonnades of his neck as his crass anger dampened down into sorrow. She was gone... He had only seen her for a few notes of time... What if that was truly the last he'd see of her? 

_Again...?_

He slumped to the grimy cell floor and sniffled. His tears nearly sliced open his features with the sharpness of the disturbances they conveyed. 

"Madellaine..."

He knew she was gone, but he needed her ever so badly that the walls contorted and shook, his vision deemed worthless and blurry if it wasn't being used to gaze at her splendor. What was he supposed to do? 

Deep down, he must have known that his wife was right because he couldn't seem to set his bones into motion. He curled in the dimmest corner of his harrowing cell, trying to retain any form of heat as the chill stung his sun-bleached skin. He shivered.

Why was she trying to save him...? Why did his well-being have to matter?

What would happen if his presumed uncle managed to get what he wanted? Was he to lose the only thing he had to live for?

He didn't understand. He had just been getting strength back, and he even looked in the mirror and saw that the fatigued bands and streaks of purple under his eyes seemed much less anemic. He didn't understand how the corruption in this world kept up, how it worked, how it could possibly justify itself. He knew Madellaine was in a snug spot and he knew she loved him. But if she didn't, she could live her life. If she resented him, if she wanted to see his head roll, she wouldn't have to languish under this man's clutches. Why couldn't she just hate him...?

What grounds did Jehan have to kill him anyway? She had mentioned that he was wanted for kidnapping, but couldn't they just refute that outright? How long would it take for Madellaine to cautiously find the records of their union? How many trices would have to tick by, bathed in the hazard of the woman he loved's sanity and well-being? How long would he have to go without her lunar aubades, her eyes stained the hue of unsullied spring seaside...?

"Madellaine..." he hushed himself when he realized that he hadn't been able to keep back memories of his wife from the notably fragile space, so crisp it may have crackled like the columns he had snapped like string in his crusade to save Esmeralda. 

Had the mentally broken man the strength that hadn't been eaten away at by moths concerning Jehan's beseechment of ruin, had his bones been able to stagger over to the entrance despite his crippling misfortune, the steel bars would have met the same fate. But he couldn't. Not even if he tried. 

_How becoming of you, boy, to give up so quickly. She is your wife and my brother has endangered her. Though I say it is a fair price for your defiance, isn't it?_

That was enough. ENOUGH.

"Leave me alone!" his shrill tampered yell served as a whetstone for his master's voice in his head, "I'm done! Why can I not be _happy?!_ Why must you ruin my life? Why must you and your brother bring me pain?!"

_I couldn't say, dear boy. The only one who has ruined things is you. I tried to protect you, but you have allowed some careless harlot to ruin your peace and your sanctuary._

"D-Don't," Quasi's voice cut the air, "Don't speak of her that way! I... You never protected me, Claude."

_I gave you what you needed. You were the one to take that for granted. Had you simply stayed like I had told you to, dear Esmeralda would never have fallen into my arms. Madellaine would have found growth elsewhere, and she wouldn't have your life to look after. I knew what was best for you and you disobeyed me. I had always told you that there would be consequences. This is your Hell. You will see me in mine, someday._

_**"ROT THEN!"** he bellowed, beating his fists against the mildewed walls like a madman, "ROT IN YOUR HELL, CLAUDE!"_

"HEY!" the jailer barked, though Quasi could not see him through his blurred, teary-eyed vision, "Keep it down! You've a basket, courtesy of our queen, delivered here."

It was unceremoniously tossed into the cell, and the blankets and such tumbled out of the netted basket onto the cell floor. There was a change of clothing, freshly baked bread and bottled milk, a small goose-feather pillow, and three varied blankets, which must have been folded deftly until it had been launched to the ground. Quasi rummaged through it, thankful that the bottle hadn't clattered to pieces, and he found his shaking had begun to wane. The blankets... they emanated Madellaine's signature scent.

And then, tucked subtly between the folds of the blanket closer to the bottom, was a letter. He tore it open, almost like an animal, as he hoped above anything that it had been written by his wife.

_My dearest,_

_I know you're probably calling me a bitch in your mind, love. I understand. But I hope you know I am not going anywhere. I am protected in the palace, but I have a plan. Esmeralda is safe, Pheobus is with me as well. The three of us have talked, and we all agree you're safest where you rest. I hope these accommodations make it better and I will visit you if you so desire. I know what I'm doing. If you know what's best for yourself, you'll trust me. I love you with all I am. Truly._

_You have done too much for me and my regret goes without words. I know you love me, but I cannot see you in a grave. I am of no use to Jehan dead. I will be alright. I promise, sweetheart. You may hate me right now, and I understand wholly, but I'd rather you hate me alive than love me dead._

_In any case, I have faith in our plan and I have faith in God that you will rule beside me someday. I cannot wait to hear the small footsteps of little royals, our little royals someday, on the palace grounds, playing ball outside as we bathe in the sunlight from the window._

_Anyway, all this to say, by summer I hope to stand beside you once more, to finally be able to show you off to the world, my wonderful husband, the love of my life. Everything is going to be alright. I promise. I wish I could kiss your beautiful face._

_You're loved and cherished always, my handsome man._

_Unconditionally yours,_

_Mads._

_"Oh, my love... I couldn't ever hate you..."_

_It was then that he truly could see with his own eyes. He hadn't been her protector._

_She had been his._

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yesh this was meant to be a little short lmao


	20. Chapter Twenty

The way Jehan breathed in his sleep was menacing.

Madellaine was fortunate enough that he wasn't swaddled around her in their shared bed, but playing along was truly testing her resignation. She just wanted to smack that _stupid_ grin off of his face. Disgusting... how does mankind swoon at this man's features with such an ugly heart underneath it all? And yet they shun her beautifully individual husband for just... existing? Breathing the air of the more fortunate, the ones who didn't have to worry whether or not their appearance would get them stoned?

Madellaine curled a little further away from him. As far as she could. 

"Jehan..." she murmured into the sullen twilight. His breathing tapered down.

"What is it?" he mumbled.

"Can you not breathe so loudly? Please?"

"What...?" he rolled his eyes, "I _guess_."

Was he nothing more than a child? A child who didn't get his way, a child who lost his favorite toy? Is that the man she was to marry if her plan went awry?

Silence raced the course of post-solar breeze through their open window. She couldn't help but think about her husband. A nearly corrupted image of Jehan and Quasi making amends, being a normal, festive family soaked through her brain. But she knew that it was too late for that now. Father or not, she knew Quasi would never forgive him for what he had done. 

"Do you not..." she swallowed down an uncomfortable sigh, "Desire a relationship with your son?"

She heard Jehan's recoilation against the silk sheets, "No."

"Why? Is it because of his appearance?"

"Not particularly..." Jehan's voice was as docile as she had ever heard it. He hadn't _meant_ to say that. What was this woman doing to him?

"You really believe he killed Claude, don't you?" she whispered. She even dared to roll over so that she may face him, as much as it disgusted her to do so. She didn't like it when she didn't understand... She needed to get into the psychopathological quandary of such an individual. She needed to _understand_ his requirement for dissonance. She wanted to know how he justified what he was doing. She didn't understand.

Jehan remained silent. 

"Or is it something else...?"

"I don't want to speak of this anymore. Go to sleep."

He reeled away from her and squeezed his eyes shut, milking any semblance of tears left from the barren ducts behind his eyelids. Why did he yearn for her to hold him in high esteem? What was this awareness, why did he wish he never laid a hand on her? He had never cared about his past actions before. Not since Claude had died. He hadn't the time to worry about those he didn't care about.

But he didn't care about Madellaine. He didn't understand.

Madellaine's eyes stumbled all around his form. His demeanor was different this night after she had brought her husband up. She bound her eyes and tensed her fists into the sheets, bringing her knee to her elbow and praying for sleep.

It seemed as though hours legislated beyond the two before she finally received the dignity of a response.

"His eyes."

Madellaine's glossy eyes hardly opened, but she had heard him. 

"What?"

"His eyes, Madellaine. That of his mother's."

Madellaine's brow trembled as she tucked her thumb into her fist. Would that not be a good thing?

"You don't want to see your son's eyes because they remind you of your wife's..." it was not a question, but a statement.

"Yes. If I had just been more careful, if I had stayed with her, then maybe... She would not have died saving him. Claude would not have died trying to right such wrongs. Everyone I love is dead because of him. No wonder, then, that his face shows the marks of the sins he's made against his own father."

Madellaine didn't hasten forward, for his touch made her ill, and so did his statements. 

"He was a _baby_ ," Madellaine sought not to allow her frustration to deflect through the fissures in her faux-interest, "He didn't ask to be here, Jehan. If you could get your carnal urges under control, then maybe you wouldn't have had to worry about that."

He wanted to grumble, but he couldn't strain his shredded vocal cords without screaming. 

"But what about before you knew of his eyes?" Madellaine pressed when he gave no answer, "Why didn't you see him?"

"I... I was scared..." his voice fluctuated starkly like a small child's, and for a moment, she forgot that she was speaking heart-to-heart with her rapist. "She never came back to Corinthia for me. I never wanted a baby. I just wanted her. And Claude... he left me too."

Madellaine felt like a fool for feeling pity for this sad, ineffectual excuse for a man, "You feared your son would leave you, so you left him first?"

"Yes."

She swallowed past the crude film of her lassitude, trying to keep her eyes open, "But... You didn't know what happened to Florika until I told you. How did you justify wanting to make him suffer before that?"

Jehan dared to meet her eyes, "Claude. Taking away my chance to wed you without getting my hands dirty. You must have a terrible memory."

Madellaine was so frustrated, so congested with exulantic fatigue that she didn't even want to bother any longer. 

She swung her legs over the side of the bed and stepped into her slippers. Her stringed hair was wilted and sucked depleted of all life, as she hadn't gotten the best chance to clean it. Jehan didn't say anything when she tipped her way out of the bedroom and into the hallway.

* * *

* * *

Madellaine's knuckles rung, unearthed as the hollow beads in her corset, against the buoyant door of a good friend's chambers. 

"Esmeralda...?"

For a few moments, she didn't hear anything, and she pondered just giving up and traversing the further depths of her palace to allow the woman her rest. But, eventually, she heard what sounded like beddings rustling, being banished to the ground, and small, though confident footsteps coming towards the door. 

The door opened, surprisingly, without any creaks, and Madellaine stepped back some so that it didn't whack her in the face. 

"Madellaine?"

Madellaine nodded, and the underneath of her eyelids felt extremely slippery and taut with slumber.

"Can I... can I sleep here tonight?" the queen asked, tapping the smile lines of her fingernails against one another.

Esmeralda showed her a radiant smile, comforting, though overcast with interrupted sleep. She opened the door some more, allowing her only true female friend to tiptoe quietly inside.

Madellaine's breathing felt stuffy, much like the climate in her country, which was a stark contrast to dear France. Her skin was nearly smoking, and Esmeralda struck a match and lit up the braziers lined upon the chamber walls. Small dots of light came to be and Madellaine squinted, strained.

When the obsidian-haired beauty sat on the goose-feather bed and patted the spot beside her, Madellaine picked up the skirts of her underdress and sat.

"What's the matter?" Esmeralda asked, though they both discerned just how fruitless that question rang against the granite walls. 

"Everything," Madellaine muttered, and she whimpered in her endeavors to not cry. "I don't like sleeping beside Jehan. And I just... I _can't_ sleep knowing that Quasi is down in the cellar."

"He's alright," Esmeralda batted away a small speck of dust from Madellaine's shoulder, "He can handle isolation and stone walls. It's where he was raised..."

"I just... I know, but... I suppose that's the wife in me, worrying about his comfort when I can't tend to it."

"Trust me, I understand," the Romani woman raked her fingernails through her opaque tresses, "When Pheobus is deployed and I find myself sleeping alone because of his work, I can't help but worry if he's bleeding out or if he's eating a feast."

Madellaine then realized that the soldier boy wasn't present in the room, and she queried how she didn't notice it sooner. Lack of sleep, perhaps. 

"Where is Pheobus?" Madellaine questioned matter-of-factly. 

"He's in the kitchens," she chortled and shook her head. That was just like her husband, always looking for something to eat. He had to keep up with his fast metabolism _somehow_.

"Oh," Madellaine blinked, "Of course he found the kitchens before even I could in my own palace."

Esmeralda's viridian eyes were so kind that Madellaine wanted to look at them forever. They were knowing and wise despite her age, and carried the reliance that she always wanted. She truly wondered what Quasi saw in her at times, when her friend was everything a wife should be. She sometimes even wondered if he'd have loved her to the altar if Pheobus hadn't met her in the streets, dancing for coins. 

"I am a little peckish..." Esmeralda smoothed a hand over her stomach. "My baby only ever sleeps during the day."

Madellaine offered a small smile, "I'm sure there is leftover mutton in the icebox, or perhaps some fruit. Given that Pheobus hasn't eaten it already."

"That's alright, I'm too tired... You look like you could use some sleep too."

Madellaine could barely keep her wary eyes open any longer. She nodded briskly and whisked her matted hair out of her eyes.

"Are you sure it's alright? I wouldn't want to be a burden..."

"Nonsense..." Esmeralda nictated slowly, easing Madellaine onto the messy, though ornately woven bedsheets, and though Madellaine was braiding her fingers in embarrassment, the older woman covered her slender form with a blanket and gave her room. There was more than enough room on the bed for the entire privy council, for God's sake, and so the young royal allowed her insecurity regarding Pheobus's space to dwindle. 

When Madellaine subconsciously tucked her head into the other's shoulderblade, Esmeralda allotted one of her arms to drape down the blonde's back. She truly was like an older sister... 

"And don't worry, we've gotten incognito priests sent to Paris," the soldier's wife whispered, "We'll have those papers soon. In the meantime, just humor him, alright?"

"Will this work...?" Madellaine whispered, small into the pleasant smelling tanned skin of her mutual.

"I'm sure. There isn't any way he can force your hand with such proof."

"And what if he hurts him anyway...?"

Esmeralda tucked the girl closer to her, like a mother cub and a baby lark, and in an effort to hush her tweeting, she rubbed her back comfortingly.

"He won't... Not with us here. And besides, Quasi is stronger than he looks. He'd crush him in hand-to-hand combat."

Oh, her strong husband. Lord, what would she have given to see him on the night of the gypsy people's liberation. It was so oddly wonderful how easily he could sweep her off her feet, quite literally. He must have been like Samson, crumbling the pillars of the temple of Dagon to dust, and it made her heart feel inflated just thinking about it.

Madellaine dozed off to the very fantasy, and Esmeralda was close behind until Pheobus abruptly opened the door. Esmeralda would have rolled her eyes beneath her closed lids if that were possible.

"Hey-"

For an umbra of a second, he swore that his wife was cosseting another man in her arms, but he was quickly relieved to see Madellaine's face, etched with burst blood vessels and exhaustion.

"Shhh..." Esmeralda hushed, "She's just gotten to sleep..."

"Oh..." he whispered, and he shut the door as subtly as he could, "Was he being a creep?"

"Probably..." 

Pheobus kicked off his boots and softly passed over to the bed. They all fell asleep entwined around each other, knowing how perilously the queen needed comforting in this horribly stressful situation.

Every day passed so slowly that it was unendurable. Madellaine didn't even know what Jehan's limits were if he didn't get his way. What if there were no ways to avoid peril? What if someone's blood was destined to be shed at the end of this? What if it would be too late? What if she was to be burying her own husband by the end of the year, when she truly wanted nothing more than to rule with him beside her?

What if the solution was too easy to be true?

But everything seemed trite and hackneyed when her friends held her, protecting her like what a mother and father should have been. 

* * *

* * *

“Your majesty…”

The queen hummed slightly in her sleep as Agathe shook her shoulder gently.

“Madellaine… wake up...”

“Hmm…?”

Agathe smirked as the blonde woman's eyes unclosed slightly. Esmeralda and Pheobus weren't there... she was alone in their bed. Where had they gone?

“Is it morning?” she asked unobtrusively.

“Mhm… we have to get you ready.”

Madellaine didn’t _want_ to get out of bed. She was comfortable in her realm of repose, barely four hours of sleep on her radar. She burrowed closer into his sheets and let out a vague sound.

“Five more minutes...”

The lady in waiting laughed at this and stole her blanket, folding it and grouping it neatly at the corner of the bed. Madellaine squeaked and reached for it.

“I don’t think so,” Agathe told her, “Being late is not very becoming of a queen.”

“Hnnn…” Madellaine ground her fists against her sleep-coated eyes. Agathe drew open the drapes, fresh bolts of sunlight glazing through and illuminating Madellaine's half-lying body. The younger groaned and covered her eyes, swinging her legs over the side of the bed.

“Okay, I’m up,” she said throughout a yawn, swelling out her muscles and grabbing for the glass of water on her nightstand. She drank half of the cup and stood up, wobbling slightly.

“I've called for a dress and servants to prepare you for your coronation,” Agahe told her, “Meet me in the dressing room in a few minutes?”

“Oh... um,” Madellaine's eyes were still somnolent, but she knew that a walk would get her up and going. "Alright."

She had forgotten about her coronation in all rectitude, so being woken up was a bit of a clash to the slow morns of sun-clogged chambers, steady as the driven snow. She still wasn't used to not being woken by her husband's pealing bells, gleaming in her senses with a gilded zeal. That was all she ever wanted to hear... And yet now, she had to prepare her vows to her country, a responsibility she never thought she'd have to carry.

She was terrified... This was too much. How was she to keep her head held high whilst the gaze of her kingdom dwelled all over her? She was a _mess!_

Though, luckily, Jehan wasn't going to be breathing down her neck just yet as her king. This day was all hers.

But the wedding wasn't too far behind.

* * *


	21. Chapter Twenty-One

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I went to the mall and GUESS WHAT I SAW  
> A green dress that looked a lot like Madellaine's! It had white sleeves and everything, but the green was a little darker and the neckline was much lower.  
> I would have bought it if it wasn't, like, hundreds of dollars XD
> 
> instead, I got my nails done black, and I can confirm that I am a blonde catra now. typing is hard with acrylics.  
> forgive me for always using these notes as a journal LOL
> 
> ignore typos if there are any. I kept forgetting to shift from writing for men to writing for women so i kept accidentally typing he/him pronouns for Mads and Bellamy.

"Oh, sweetheart... you look stunning."

The virulent pierce of the queen's eyes against the reflective glass nearly cracked the surface. They rested, nearly prepared to tumble out of her sockets due to her lethargy, and it hurt.

"Thank you..." Madellaine tucked her long sleeves further up her wrist and reveled in the cool air that hit them. Bellamy was stitching the last few beads onto her sovereign Queen Anne neckline on her carmine gown, and though the bigger beads looked more like clotted blood than roses, she kept her mouth shut. At least Jehan was still asleep.

Madellaine's aureate sleeves, embroidered along the rims with a pale flaxen shade, only began at the tucked edges of her neckline, near her shoulders. The red fabric that spilled all over her also carried the same intricate pattern of gilded thread creating very lacy-looking ornamental stitching all around. Red wasn't a color Madellaine wore often, but Quasi had told her that it suited her on multiple occasions. She wished he could see her...

"You look downcast, my princess..." 

"I just..." she felt her forearms, nearly begging them to not fall off due to the stress, "I miss someone. Quite a lot."

"Oh, dear... well, I'm sure wherever she is, she'd be proud!"

Madellaine curved around, a small quarter-turn, and looked the woman in the eye, "Yeah, she would..." she said, knowing that even the pronoun 'he' would box adulterous suspicion in her.

"Tell me about her, dear, while I fasten your corset."

"She has beautiful red hair... It captures the light in a wonderful way. Striking eyes of blue... She was so strong. She could turn the world upside down with a tip of her finger. She would always tell me everything was okay, but when it wasn't okay, she wouldn't lie to me. She never sang... but when she did, it would make me cry. She loved music... she'd play her special instruments every morning. She was honest and stubborn... and a pain in my ass sometimes. But I can't stop missing her..."

Madellaine began to wonder what Quasi would have looked like as a woman, the one she was describing to her future sister-in-law. Surely life would have been so much worse for him, then... 

"Oh..." Bellamy had to steady her hands so that she wouldn't poke the girl in the side. She knew what she was talking about...

But if Madellaine was in love with her brother, then... why was she speaking so fondly of the man she left? She wasn't having regrets, was she...?

Or was something going on beneath the pages that she didn't know of? Something much more sinister?

Madellaine's hair looked pure canary in the sunlight, which seemed almost unnatural without context. She was going to be crowned queen, officially, in mere moments, and her husband's first royal eve as king would be spent in a dank, putrid prison cell. Quasi _would_ be king when the rim of that heavy, golden crown touched the top of her head, though he wouldn't know it, and neither would her kingdom. It was best to keep it to herself...

Though, perhaps, she'd get a gift for her love to make his night special...

"You're speaking of... your ex-husband?" Bellamy inquired, though there was no malice in her tone, only... drips of melancholy complexity. Perhaps disappointment.

"How- _how did you-"_

"I know he's here..." Bellamy whispered into the confines of her ear, neatly slathered with her fluffy hair, and Madellaine's pupils contracted as if given a frigid blow by Jack Frost himself.

"L-Lord, have mercy, I..." Madellaine stuttered, hands trembling as if she were freezing cold, and her heartstrings were plucked like a lyre, "Please, have mercy on me. Have mercy on him. I beseech you, Bellamy...!"

 _"Shhh... quiet, or he'll hear you..."_ the woman whispered, deep from her throat, and Madellaine's whole body resonated like the bells of her husband's sanctuary after an especially poignant pealing. No. No, no, no, no. NO! She had been so careful...!

"P-Please..." Madellaine uttered, "No... please, d-don't _tell_ him...!"

Bellamy's selenite eyes pleaded with the princess to keep her tone at a low simmer so that her brother may not hear her. 

_So... she had been forced into this... Oh, poor child. What have I done? I thought he'd just turn on the charm and she'd leave her husband in a jiffy! That's all I asked of him! Oh, dear child...! I'm a fool for agreeing to this, I should have known he'd take after Claude!_

"Shhh, it's alright, child, I'm not saying a word... I am so sorry..." Bellamy clasped the girl's hands in her own, and Madellaine had been panicking so tempestuously that she lost feeling in her limbs. 

"Y-You won't...?" Madellaine nearly smeared the kohl quilting her eyes, dilating the makeup across her cheeks.

"I..." Bellamy nipped her bottom lip, wrinkled with eternity, "I won't, sweetheart. I'm sorry he has done this to you... I didn't know he'd do this. But I can help. Is there anything I can do to be at your service, my princess? I am at your command."

_My command? She's not in on this? What? Is she bluffing? Oh, dear Lord, no... Is Quasi alright? Oh, my poor, sweet love, I miss him so much!_

"Let me see my husband... _please..._ "

"But your ceremony, dear. It's in a few minutes...!"

"Stall them... I have to see him!"

"No. The show must go on..."

As Bellamy saw the rusted cracks in the girl's eyes, fissures threatening to loosen up and vent into weepings and lamentations of blood-drenched tears, she felt the most pity she had ever remembered feeling. Poor, sweet child...

Perhaps there was something she could do for her.

* * *

Madellaine's gilded crown, plated with the sigil of her land, weighed more cumbersome on her when suitably placed on her hair in the ceremonial room. She was in the Grand Manor, a room so boundless it was as if God Himself could fit inside with room to spare. There were numbers of people there, noble folk and serfs alike, to witness this mysterious woman's investiture, and although she looked offbeat, most of them were willing to accept her. If the Pope, deemed a dignitary of God by all of Europe, declared that she was to lead, dishonoring that would be disgracing the Holy Trinity's birthright.

Madellaine felt her blood run as frozen as the elaborate metal diadem on her head. She rose from her heartfelt obeisance and looked at the Regent before her. The young royal's breath was unreliable as her eyes laid on the other, hands beginning to quiver. She wasn’t going to make a fool of herself, however, and averted her attentiveness fully back to Bellamy and then to the Archbishop. He was reading out things in Latin, and though she knew little of the tongue, she knew that the man spoke very quickly, a result of his missing teeth and Italian inflection.

Finally, the precious metal ornaments were brought before her. The orb and scepters.

They were the symbolic hook and flail of nearly all European monarchies, a representation of sovereignty and prosperity.

She was still shaking, despairingly moistened panic in her heart knowing who was in her very propinquity. God. Jehan, in the crowd. A... man in a mask. Odd. Bellamy, who knew everything now of her husband. Esmeralda and Pheobus, who nodded at her to keep going concentrated as the River Seine.

That man in the mask seemed oddly... familiar.

When given permission, she reached for the symbols, which were relinquished into her listless hands. She felt her breath sever in two, much like the buckling in her knees. She put on a brave face holding them in her hands, facing the crowd as she had been told to do. She stood before the faction of citizens fully, crown glistening, lacquered with her mother's blood, sweat, and tears. The Archbishop continued to go on until Bellamy proclaimed her name.

“You shall call her Queen Madellaine the First,” her voice chimed out, “All rise before Her Majesty.”

She could not wait any longer to see her husband. It was so far from being quenched that the impact of her title didn't mercifully strike her like she thought it would have.

The man in the mask was no longer present, but she heard throughout the pendent chamber the chilling choir of bells, specializing in rippling and fermenting the heartstrings of the people, much _much_ like her husband's.

It made the woman so heartsick that she wished she could listen to them for all time.

* * *

"QUASI!"

It had felt like an eternity since he had heard that voice. It almost felt like another one of his delusions, like the gargoyles, but not even Hugo could have screeched as loud as his loving wife.

"Mads?"

A frenzied haste of jingling keys unlocked his cell, and before his brain has time to process what was happening, he was then subject to a prisoner in his wife's arms. He let out a humble sonance and grazed his fingertips against the slender pillars of her neck, using his other to fasten around her back. The silence popped when she heard him latch a kiss into her jaw, albeit quickly, as he hadn't enough time until she sank further into his arms.

"What's the matter, love?" he susurrated into the fringes of the continuum in the air, time that hadn't felt sincere in so long.

"His sister knows you are here..." she whispered, and she fought the ardors of hell not to break down into tears.

"I know, love. She spoke to me."

"What?!" Madellaine's voice was strained, her vocal cords swollen.

"Yes. Did you not see me in the crowd?"

Madellaine looked at him, much like the way small children did when they first saw his cursed features. No... 

"The man... in the mask...? But how?"

Quasi raked his spry fingers through her locks as she was drawn in for another embrace, only this time with a firm, shielding grip.

"Bellamy wouldn't let me miss our own coronation. And she wouldn't let me be in _here_ so that I may not ring the bells for my beautiful queen."

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Have any of you heard of Smile HD? No? Good. I just rewatched it and I am m o r t i f i e d.
> 
> "I give a smile, I get a smile, and that's so special to me!" -PINKIE TURNS SUPER SAIYAN-
> 
> damn, that's an old reference.
> 
> -warning. you are about to witness someone who looked up DBZ for the first time in years just to spite that shitty joke made about super saiyan pinkie pie-
> 
> AND DAMN, there really IS art of Pinkie as Goku. Wow.  
> NOOO AND THERE'S SHIP ART. NOOOO PINKIE IS A HORSE NO NO NO NO NO NO N
> 
> WHY IS IT SO POPULAR LMFAOOOOOOO
> 
> WHY IS THERE A VIDEO OF TRUNKS AND FRIEZA REACTING TO SMILE HD  
> WHY IS THERE A VIDEO OF VEGETA REACTING TO CUPCAKES HD?!  
> HAHAHAHAH  
> WHY DID I LOOK UP MLP DBZ CROSSOVER, I'VE BEEN OUT OF BOTH FANDOMS FOR YEARS. I DID IT AS A JOKE AND NOW I'M WONDERING LOTS OF THINGS
> 
> I-  
> EQUESTRIA GIRLS TRIXIE x BULMA?  
> WHAT, SO THEY'RE BOTH KINDA THE SAME COLOR, SO THEY BOTH HAVE TO GO OUT?  
> THEY WOULD ABSOLUTELY FUCKING HATE EACH OTHER LMFAOFIAOIDAOIJH
> 
> I have to close this window before I go into a rabbit hole I dont wanna see. and before I get back into these two fandoms over THIS LMAO
> 
> I think the only thing these two fandoms have in common is all of the shitty fanart I drew of them a million years ago that I never want to see again. I'm glad I forget a lot of the details. 
> 
> I am going to SLEEP NOW. If I have cursed dreams about trixie and bulma it's all my fault.


End file.
